Bosnian Youth Stage Prison Camp Remembrance Tour

Over 50 activists from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina took the bus trip which was intended to “send out a clear message to society not to accept the denial of crimes, discrimination and the politicisation of civilian victims”, according to the organisers, a campaign group called Because It Concerns Me.

The coachload of young people of various ethnicities from Prijedor, Konjic, Sarajevo, Gradiska, Banja Luka and Tuzla departed from the capital last Saturday and travelled south to Mostar, stopping off at former detention camps where civilians were abused, tortured and killed along the way.

The bus stopped for the first time in Hadzici, where Bosniak civilians were detained in a wartime prison camp at a sports centre, and held a few minutes’ silence for those who were killed there in 1992.

They then went on to visit former camps at Celebici in Konjic, where Serb prisoners were detained, the Battle of Neretva Museum in Jablanica, where Croats were held, and Dretelj in Capljina, where Serbs and Bosniaks were imprisoned.

“All civilian victims should be remembered and paid respect as citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who were killed only because they belonged to another nationality,” said Emir Hodzic, one of the activists from Because It Concerns Me.

Another activist from Gradiska said that people’s suffering should be remembered by  Bosnians of all ethnicities because “that is the only path to reconciliation”.

However some locals they met along the route questioned whether all wartime atrocities should be marked with memorials. One local resident in Jablanica said: “The crimes should be forgotten in a way. I think only large places of suffering should be memorialised.”

The activists concluded their trip in Mostar, where they threw roses off the town’s Old Bridge, which was bombed during the conflict, in remembrance of all the victims of the 1992-95 war.