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Omarska camp
The Omarska camp was a concentration camp run by the Army of Republika Srpska in the mining town of Omarska, near Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, set up for Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Bosnian Croat prisoners during the Prijedor ethnic cleansing. Functioning in the first months of the Bosnian War in 1992, it was one of 677 alleged detention centers and camps set up throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. While nominally an "investigation center" or "assembly point" for members of the Bosniak and Croatian population, Human Rights Watch classified Omarska as a concentration camp.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, located in The Hague, found several individuals guilty of crimes against humanity perpetrated at Omarska. Murder, torture, rape, and abuse of prisoners was common. Around 6,000 Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, mainly men, were held at the camp for about five months in the spring and summer of 1992. Hundreds died of starvation, punishment, beatings, ill-treatment and executions.
Omarska is a predominantly Serbian village in northwestern Bosnia, near the town of Prijedor. The camp in the village existed from about 25 May to about 21 August 1992, when the Army of Republika Srpska and police unlawfully segregated, detained and confined some of more than 7,000 Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats captured in Prijedor. Serb authorities termed it an "investigation center" and the detainees were accused of paramilitary activities. By the end of 1992, the war had resulted in the death or forced departure of most of the Bosniak and Croat population of Prijedor municipality. About 7,000 people went missing from a population of 25,000, and there are 14 mass graves and hundreds of individual graves in the extended region. There is conflicting information about how many people were killed at Omarska. According to survivors, usually about 30 and sometimes as many as 150 men were singled out and killed in the camp. The U.S. State Department and other governments believe that, at a minimum, hundreds of detainees, some of whose identities are unknown, did not survive; many others were killed during the evacuation of the camps in the Prijedor area.
A declaration on the takeover of Prijedor by Serb forces was prepared by Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) politicians and was repeatedly read out on Radio Prijedor the day after the takeover. Four-hundred Bosnian Serb policemen were assigned to participate in the takeover, the objective of which was to seize the functions of the president of the municipality, the vice-president of the municipality, the director of the post office, the chief of the police, etc. On the night of the 29/30 April 1992, the takeover of power took place. Serb employees of the public security station and reserve police gathered in Cirkin Polje, part of the town of Prijedor. The people there were given the task of taking over power in the municipality and were broadly divided into five groups. Each group of about twenty had a leader and each was ordered to gain control of certain buildings. One group was responsible for the Assembly building, one for the main police building, one for the courts, one for the bank and the last for the post-office. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) concluded that the takeover by the Serb politicians was an illegal coup d'état, which was planned and coordinated long in advance with the ultimate aim of creating a pure Serbian municipality. These plans were never hidden and they were implemented in a coordinated action by the Serb police, army and politicians. One of the leading figures was Milomir Stakić, who came to play the dominant role in the political life of the municipality.
In May 1992, intensive shelling and infantry attacks on Bosniak areas in the municipality caused the Bosniak survivors to flee their homes. The majority of them surrendered or were captured by Serb forces. As the Army of Republika Srpska rounded up Bosniak and Croat men, they forced them to march in columns bound for one or another of the prison camps that the Serb authorities had established in the municipality. On about 25 May 1992, about three weeks after the Serbs took control of the municipal government, and two days after the start of large scale military attacks on Bosniak population centers, Serb forces began taking prisoners to the Omarska camp. During the next several weeks, the Serbs continued to round up Bosniaks and Croats from Kozarac near Prijedor, and other places in the municipality and send them to the camps. Many Bosniak and Bosnian Croat intellectuals and politicians were sent to Omarska. While virtually all of the prisoners were male, there were also 37 women detained in the camp, who served food and cleaned the walls of the torture rooms, and were repeatedly raped in the canteen; bodies of five of them have been exhumed.
The Omarska mines complex was located about 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Prijedor. The first detainees were taken to the camp at some point between 26 and 30 May. The camp buildings were almost completely full and some of the detainees had to be held in the area between the two main buildings. That area was lit up by specially installed spot-lights after the detainees arrived. Female detainees were held separately in the administrative building. According to the wartime documents of Serb authorities, there were a total of 3,334 persons held in the camp from 27 May to 16 August 1992; 3,197 were Bosniaks and 125 were Croats.
Within the area of the Omarska mining complex that was used for the camp, the camp authorities generally confined the prisoners in three different buildings: the administration building, where interrogations and killings took place; the crammed hangar building; the "white house", where the inmates were tortured; and on a cement courtyard area between the buildings known as the "pista", an L-shaped strip of concrete land in between, also a scene of torture and mass killings. There was another small building, known as the "red house", where prisoners were sometimes taken in order to be summarily executed. With the arrival of the first detainees, permanent guard posts and anti-personnel landmines were set up around the camp. The conditions in the camp were horrible. In the building known as the "white house", the rooms were crowded with 45 people in a room no larger than 20 square metres (220 sq ft). The faces of the detainees were distorted and bloodstained and the walls were covered with blood. From the beginning, the detainees were beaten with fists, rifle butts and wooden and metal sticks. The guards mostly hit the heart and kidneys whenever they decided to beat someone to death. In the "garage", between 150 and 160 people were "packed like sardines" and the heat was unbearable. For the first few days, the detainees were not allowed out and were given only a jerry can of water and some bread. Men would suffocate during the night and their bodies would be taken out the following morning. The room behind the restaurant was known as "Mujo’s Room". The dimensions of this room were about 12 m × 15 m (39 ft × 49 ft) and the average number of people detained there was 500, most of whom were Bosniaks. The women in the camp slept in the interrogations rooms, which they would have to clean each day as the rooms were covered in blood and pieces of skin and hair. In the camp one could hear the moaning and wailing of people who were being beaten.
The detainees at Omarska had one meal a day. The food was usually spoiled and the process of getting the food, eating and returning the plate usually lasted around three minutes. Meals were often accompanied by beatings. The toilets were blocked and there was human waste everywhere. British journalist Ed Vulliamy testified that when he visited the camp, the detainees were in very poor physical condition. He witnessed them eating a bowl of soup and some bread and said that he had the impression they had not eaten in a long time; they appeared terrified. According to Vulliamy, the detainees drank water from a river that was polluted with industrial waste and many suffered from constipation or dysentery. No criminal report was ever filed against persons detained in the Omarska camp, nor were the detainees apprised of any concrete charges against them. Apparently, there was no legitimate reason justifying these people’s detention.
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Omarska camp
The Omarska camp was a concentration camp run by the Army of Republika Srpska in the mining town of Omarska, near Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, set up for Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Bosnian Croat prisoners during the Prijedor ethnic cleansing. Functioning in the first months of the Bosnian War in 1992, it was one of 677 alleged detention centers and camps set up throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. While nominally an "investigation center" or "assembly point" for members of the Bosniak and Croatian population, Human Rights Watch classified Omarska as a concentration camp.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, located in The Hague, found several individuals guilty of crimes against humanity perpetrated at Omarska. Murder, torture, rape, and abuse of prisoners was common. Around 6,000 Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, mainly men, were held at the camp for about five months in the spring and summer of 1992. Hundreds died of starvation, punishment, beatings, ill-treatment and executions.
Omarska is a predominantly Serbian village in northwestern Bosnia, near the town of Prijedor. The camp in the village existed from about 25 May to about 21 August 1992, when the Army of Republika Srpska and police unlawfully segregated, detained and confined some of more than 7,000 Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats captured in Prijedor. Serb authorities termed it an "investigation center" and the detainees were accused of paramilitary activities. By the end of 1992, the war had resulted in the death or forced departure of most of the Bosniak and Croat population of Prijedor municipality. About 7,000 people went missing from a population of 25,000, and there are 14 mass graves and hundreds of individual graves in the extended region. There is conflicting information about how many people were killed at Omarska. According to survivors, usually about 30 and sometimes as many as 150 men were singled out and killed in the camp. The U.S. State Department and other governments believe that, at a minimum, hundreds of detainees, some of whose identities are unknown, did not survive; many others were killed during the evacuation of the camps in the Prijedor area.
A declaration on the takeover of Prijedor by Serb forces was prepared by Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) politicians and was repeatedly read out on Radio Prijedor the day after the takeover. Four-hundred Bosnian Serb policemen were assigned to participate in the takeover, the objective of which was to seize the functions of the president of the municipality, the vice-president of the municipality, the director of the post office, the chief of the police, etc. On the night of the 29/30 April 1992, the takeover of power took place. Serb employees of the public security station and reserve police gathered in Cirkin Polje, part of the town of Prijedor. The people there were given the task of taking over power in the municipality and were broadly divided into five groups. Each group of about twenty had a leader and each was ordered to gain control of certain buildings. One group was responsible for the Assembly building, one for the main police building, one for the courts, one for the bank and the last for the post-office. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) concluded that the takeover by the Serb politicians was an illegal coup d'état, which was planned and coordinated long in advance with the ultimate aim of creating a pure Serbian municipality. These plans were never hidden and they were implemented in a coordinated action by the Serb police, army and politicians. One of the leading figures was Milomir Stakić, who came to play the dominant role in the political life of the municipality.
In May 1992, intensive shelling and infantry attacks on Bosniak areas in the municipality caused the Bosniak survivors to flee their homes. The majority of them surrendered or were captured by Serb forces. As the Army of Republika Srpska rounded up Bosniak and Croat men, they forced them to march in columns bound for one or another of the prison camps that the Serb authorities had established in the municipality. On about 25 May 1992, about three weeks after the Serbs took control of the municipal government, and two days after the start of large scale military attacks on Bosniak population centers, Serb forces began taking prisoners to the Omarska camp. During the next several weeks, the Serbs continued to round up Bosniaks and Croats from Kozarac near Prijedor, and other places in the municipality and send them to the camps. Many Bosniak and Bosnian Croat intellectuals and politicians were sent to Omarska. While virtually all of the prisoners were male, there were also 37 women detained in the camp, who served food and cleaned the walls of the torture rooms, and were repeatedly raped in the canteen; bodies of five of them have been exhumed.
The Omarska mines complex was located about 20 kilometres (12 mi) from Prijedor. The first detainees were taken to the camp at some point between 26 and 30 May. The camp buildings were almost completely full and some of the detainees had to be held in the area between the two main buildings. That area was lit up by specially installed spot-lights after the detainees arrived. Female detainees were held separately in the administrative building. According to the wartime documents of Serb authorities, there were a total of 3,334 persons held in the camp from 27 May to 16 August 1992; 3,197 were Bosniaks and 125 were Croats.
Within the area of the Omarska mining complex that was used for the camp, the camp authorities generally confined the prisoners in three different buildings: the administration building, where interrogations and killings took place; the crammed hangar building; the "white house", where the inmates were tortured; and on a cement courtyard area between the buildings known as the "pista", an L-shaped strip of concrete land in between, also a scene of torture and mass killings. There was another small building, known as the "red house", where prisoners were sometimes taken in order to be summarily executed. With the arrival of the first detainees, permanent guard posts and anti-personnel landmines were set up around the camp. The conditions in the camp were horrible. In the building known as the "white house", the rooms were crowded with 45 people in a room no larger than 20 square metres (220 sq ft). The faces of the detainees were distorted and bloodstained and the walls were covered with blood. From the beginning, the detainees were beaten with fists, rifle butts and wooden and metal sticks. The guards mostly hit the heart and kidneys whenever they decided to beat someone to death. In the "garage", between 150 and 160 people were "packed like sardines" and the heat was unbearable. For the first few days, the detainees were not allowed out and were given only a jerry can of water and some bread. Men would suffocate during the night and their bodies would be taken out the following morning. The room behind the restaurant was known as "Mujo’s Room". The dimensions of this room were about 12 m × 15 m (39 ft × 49 ft) and the average number of people detained there was 500, most of whom were Bosniaks. The women in the camp slept in the interrogations rooms, which they would have to clean each day as the rooms were covered in blood and pieces of skin and hair. In the camp one could hear the moaning and wailing of people who were being beaten.
The detainees at Omarska had one meal a day. The food was usually spoiled and the process of getting the food, eating and returning the plate usually lasted around three minutes. Meals were often accompanied by beatings. The toilets were blocked and there was human waste everywhere. British journalist Ed Vulliamy testified that when he visited the camp, the detainees were in very poor physical condition. He witnessed them eating a bowl of soup and some bread and said that he had the impression they had not eaten in a long time; they appeared terrified. According to Vulliamy, the detainees drank water from a river that was polluted with industrial waste and many suffered from constipation or dysentery. No criminal report was ever filed against persons detained in the Omarska camp, nor were the detainees apprised of any concrete charges against them. Apparently, there was no legitimate reason justifying these people’s detention.