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Relatives and local officials gathered on Sunday in front of the primary school in the village of Pritoka in the Bihac municipality and then marched to the Tihotina pit, where the remains of 53 victims aged between 17 and 55 were discovered.
“Places such as this one, should be a reminder and a constant warning … that such heinous crimes should never be allowed to happen again,” said the mayor of Bihac, Emdzad Galijasevic.
The victims whose bodies were found at the Tihotina pit were former prisoners from the Ripac and Racic wartime detention camps.
“Some victims were killed directly in the Racic camp, while the rest were killed over here,” said Mujo Begic from Bosnia’s Institute for Missing Persons.
“This is a specific mass grave, because it is a former coal mine pit over 100 metres deep, which is why exhumation and identification and the whole process was exceptionally difficult,” Begic said.
He also announced that a memorial would be built at the Tihotina pit so that the crime would never be forgotten.
“As for the prosecution, we know who is most responsible for this crime. We know the names, both of those who ordered the crime and who committed it,” he said.
He added that families of the victims had passed on this information to prosecutors; however no one has yet faced charges over the killings.
