Commemoration at Bosnias Omarska Prison Camp
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People gathered in heavy rain on Wednesday at the site of the former camp where hundreds of Bosniak and Bosnian Croat prisoners were killed from May to August 1992.
The event was cut short and the official ceremony aborted however after Bosnian Army troops were not permitted to enter the former camp premises to join the commemoration by its current owners, steel company ArcelorMittal.
But despite this, most of the mourners remained at the camp to honour those who died.
The president of the former camp detainees association, Mirsad Duratovic, told BIRN that he was detained in Omarska as a teenager and that the annual commemoration always brought back painful memories.
This place is forever marked for me as a place of pain and suffering. I have mixed emotions – sorrow for those who were killed and rage for the negligence of the state and authorities towards us survivors, he said.
Duratovic expressed unhappiness that no state officials came to attend the 14th annual commemoration of the closing of the camp.
I dont know if this is because its the holiday season or if they just dont want to come, or maybe its because they know we do not allow political speeches in this place, he said.
Sudbin Music, the secretary of the former camp detainees association Prijedor 92, complained meanwhile that the families of the victims were still waiting for a permanent memorial to be built at the former camp.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Bosnian state court have so far sentenced 26 people to a total of 422 years in prison for wartime crimes in Prijedor. Fourteen people have been sentenced to almost 200 years in prison for crimes in the notorious Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje camps in the area.
The verdicts found that thousands of non-Serb civilians were detained in the camps, and were subject to abuse, torture, rape and murder.
Former Bosnian Serb military and political leaders Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic are also on trial in The Hague for crimes in Prijedor, among other charges.
