Bosnia lays to rest 16 more victims of Prijedor massacre

BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) – Bosnia and Herzegovina bade farewell to 16 more victims identified to have been killed in the Prijedor massacre.

The 16 newly identified Bosniak Muslim civilians who were killed in the Bosnian war by Serbian forces between 1992 and 1995 were buried in a collective funeral at the Kamicani Memorial Center.

At the event, Presidential Council Chairman Sefik Dzaferovic emphasized that genocide had been committed in Prijedor and that the struggle for justice should never be given up.

Zeljko Komsic, the council’s Croat member, said the bones of hundreds of civilians still remain unfound even after 30 years.

“People were killed here because of their religion and ethnicity,” said Komsic.

Earlier, the Institute for Missing Persons said the most recently found 16 victims of the 1992 massacre were identified 30 years late.

The process of properly identifying victims involves unearthing bodies from mass graves and finding relatives to match DNA samples.

Every year on July 20, newly identified victims of the massacre are buried in a collective cemetery at the Kamicani Memorial Center near Prijedor.

The youngest victim to be buried this year was Husein Jakupovic, 19 when he was killed, while the oldest was Edhem Kaltak, who was 65.

Prijedor was the site of numerous war crimes against Bosniak Muslim civilians by Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. The massacre claimed 5,209 Muslim Bosniaks and Croats, including 4,093 civilians.

On May 31, 1992, the Serbian administration in Prijedor required the non-Serb population to wear white stripes on their arms when they leave their homes — an order that was followed by extermination, murder, and persecution.

Most of the killings took place from May to August 1992.

Between April 1992 and December 1995, an estimated 100,000 Muslims were massacred out of ethno-religious hate and 2.2 million others were displaced in Bosnia. As many as 50,000 Muslim women were also raped.

The Bosnian War was sparked by Serbian ethnocentric nationalism targeting Bosnian Muslims out of hate and prejudice towards their religious identity. Serbian nationalism intensified with the break-up of Yugoslavia, which led Bosnia to declare independence in February 1992.

Its capital, Sarajevo, came under the attack of Serb militias backed by the Yugoslav army, in what became the longest siege in modern history, lasting nearly four years.