Omarska camp
Encyclopedia
Omarska camp was a concentration camp run by Bosnian Serb forces, in Omarska
, a mining town near Prijedor
in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina
, set up during the Prijedor massacre
for Bosniak
and Croat men and women. Functioning in the first months of the Bosnian War
in 1992, it was one of 677 alleged detention centres and camps set up throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. While nominally an "investigation center" or "assembly point" for members of the non-Serb population, Human Rights Watch
classified Omarska as a concentration camp.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
, located in The Hague
, has found several individuals guilty of crimes against humanity perpetrated at Omarska. Murder
, torture
, rape
, and abuse
of prisoners was common. About 6,000 Bosniaks and Croats were held in appalling conditions at the camp for about five months in the spring and summer of 1992. Hundreds died of starvation, punishment beatings and ill-treatment. UN prosecutors compared the camps to those run by Nazis
.
and police
unlawfully segregated, detained and confined some of more than 7,000 Bosniaks
and Bosnian Croats captured in the ethnic cleansing
of the municipality
of Prijedor. Bosnian Serb authorities termed it an investigation centre and the detainees were accused for alleged paramilitary activities.
By the end of 1992, the war would result in the death or forced departure of most of the Bosniak and Croat population of Prijedor municipality; about 7,000 people were missing from a population of 25,000, and there are 145 mass grave
s and hundreds of individual graves in the extended region. There is, however, conflicting information about how many people were killed at this camp. According to the survivors, usually about 30 and sometimes as many as 150 men were singled-out and killed in the camp every night. The U.S. State Department and other governments believe that, at a minimum, hundreds of detainees, whose identities are known and unknown, did not survive; many others were killed during the evacuation
of the camps in the area.
on the Prijedor takeover
prepared by Bosnian-Serb politicians of the Serbian Democratic Party
was read out on Radio Prijedor the day after the takeover and was repeated throughout the day. When planning the anticipated takeover, it was decided that the 400 Serb policemen who would be involved in the takeover would be sufficient for the task. The objective of the takeover was to take over 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. In the night of the April 29/30, 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.
ICTY concluded that the takeover by the Serb politicians was as an illegal coup d'état
, which was planned and coordinated a long time 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 politician
s. One of the leading figures was Milomir Stakić
, who came to play the dominant role in the political life of the Municipality.
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 Serb forces rounded up the Bosniak and Croat residents, 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 May 25, 1992, about three weeks after Serbs took control of government
in the municipality, and two days after the start of large scale military attacks on Bosniak population
centers, the Serb forces began taking prisoners to the Omarska camp. During the next several weeks, the Serb forces continued to round up Bosniaks and Croats from Kozarac area near Prijedor, and other places in the municipality and send them in the camps. Many of Bosniak and Croat intellectuals and politician
s 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 being repeatedly raped
in the canteen; bodies of five of them had been exhumed.
The Omarska mine
s complex was located about 20 km from the town of Prijedor. The first detainees were taken to the camp sometime in late May 1992 (between 26 and 30 May). The camp buildings were almost completely full and some of the detainees had to be held on 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 Serb authorities documents from Prijedor, there were a total of 3,334 persons held in the camp from May 27 to August 16, 1992. 3,197 of them were Bosniaks (i.e. Bosnian Muslims), 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 interrogation
s 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 were established around the camp, 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 meters. 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 kidney
s, when they had decided to beat someone to death. In the "garage", between 150-160 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 by 15 metres 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 up.
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. Ed Vulliamy
, a British
journalist
, testified that when he visited the camp, the detainees were in a 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 to be terrified. 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.
Murder
, torture
, rape
, and abuse
of prisoners was common. Detainees were kept in inhuman conditions and an atmosphere of extreme mental and physical violence pervaded the camp. The camp guards and frequent visitors who came to the camps used all types of weapons and instruments to beat and otherwise physically abuse the detainees. In particular, Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat political and civic leaders, intellectuals, the wealthy, and non-Serbs who were considered as "extremists" or to have resisted the Bosnian Serbs were especially subjected to beatings and mistreatment which often resulted in death.
In addition, Omarska and Keraterm camp
s also operated in a manner designed to discriminate and subjugate the non-Serbs by inhumane acts and cruel treatment. These acts included the brutal living conditions imposed on the prisoners. There was a deliberate policy of overcrowding and lack of basic necessities of life, including inadequate food
, polluted water, insufficient or non-existent medical care and unhygienic and cramped conditions. The prisoners all suffered serious psychological and physical deterioration
and were in a state of constant fear.
Killings were usually by shooting, beating or cutting of throats, although on one night of frenzied killing, prisoners were incinerated on a pyre of burning tires. The dead would be loaded onto trucks by their friends or with bulldozer
s. Sometimes prisoners were taken to dig the graves; they did not return. On the basis of the evidence presented at the Stakić trial, the Trial Chamber finds that over a hundred people were killed in late July 1992 in the Omarska camp. Around 200 people from Hambarine arrived in the Omarska camp sometime in July 1992. They were initially accommodated in the structure known as the White House. Early in the morning, around 01:00 or 02:00 on July 17, 1992, gunshots were heard that continued until dawn. Dead bodies were seen in front of the White House. The camp guards, one of whom was recognised as Zivko Marmat, were shooting rounds into the bodies. Everyone was given an extra bullet that was shot in their heads. The bodies were then loaded onto a truck and taken away. There were about 180 bodies in total.
The Omarska camp was closed immediately after a visit by foreign journalists in early August. On 6 or 7 August 1992, the detainees at Omarska were divided into groups and transported in buses to different destinations. About 1,500 people were transported on 20 buses.
A member of the United Nations
(UN) Commission of Experts testified during the Duško Tadić
trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) that their number was in the thousands, but she could not be precise, despite the fact that Serbian officials confirmed there were no large scale releases of prisoners sent there. A member of the Crisis Committee, Simo Drljača, who served as chief of police
for Prijedor, has stated that there were 6,000 "informative conversations" (meaning interrogation
s) in Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje, and that 1,503 non-Serbs were transferred from those three camps to Manjača camp
, leaving 4,497 unaccounted for according to Human Rights Watch.
(The Guardian
), Penny Marshall, and Ian Williams (ITN and Channel 4 News
) gained access to Omarska camp. Their reporting served as one of the catalysts of a UN effort to investigate war crimes committed in the conflict. The camp was closed less than a month after its exposure caused international uproar.
and the British Living Marxism
(LM) paper, prompted the Independent Television News (ITN) network to accuse the LM of libel; the ITN won the case in 2000, effectively forcing the paper to close down.
(ICMP) has been active in advocating the exhumation and identification of their bodies from mass graves around the area; with their help, a number of victims have been identified through DNA testing.
Omarska
Omarska is a small town near Prijedor in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina. It includes an old iron mine and ore processing plant...
, a mining town near Prijedor
Prijedor
Prijedor is a city and municipality in the north-western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is situated in the Bosanska Krajina region....
in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
, set up during the Prijedor massacre
Prijedor massacre
The Prijedor massacre, also known as the Prijedor ethnic cleansing or the Prijedor genocide, refers to numerous war crimes committed during the Bosnian war by the Serb political and military leadership mostly on Bosniak civilians in the Prijedor region of Bosnia-Herzegovina...
for Bosniak
Bosniaks
The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...
and Croat men and women. Functioning in the first months of the Bosnian War
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...
in 1992, it was one of 677 alleged detention centres and camps set up throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. While nominally an "investigation center" or "assembly point" for members of the non-Serb population, Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
classified Omarska as a concentration camp.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
, located in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, has found several individuals guilty of crimes against humanity perpetrated at Omarska. Murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, and abuse
Physical abuse
Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Belting*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
of prisoners was common. About 6,000 Bosniaks and Croats were held in appalling conditions at the camp for about five months in the spring and summer of 1992. Hundreds died of starvation, punishment beatings and ill-treatment. UN prosecutors compared the camps to those run by Nazis
Nazi concentration camps
Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime...
.
Overview
The camp existed from about May 25 to about August 21, 1992, where the Serb militaryMilitary
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
and police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
unlawfully segregated, detained and confined some of more than 7,000 Bosniaks
Bosniaks
The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...
and Bosnian Croats captured in the ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
of the municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
of Prijedor. Bosnian Serb authorities termed it an investigation centre and the detainees were accused for alleged paramilitary activities.
By the end of 1992, the war would result in the death or forced departure of most of the Bosniak and Croat population of Prijedor municipality; about 7,000 people were missing from a population of 25,000, and there are 145 mass grave
Mass grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple number of human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave, although the United Nations defines a mass grave as a burial site which...
s and hundreds of individual graves in the extended region. There is, however, conflicting information about how many people were killed at this camp. According to the survivors, usually about 30 and sometimes as many as 150 men were singled-out and killed in the camp every night. The U.S. State Department and other governments believe that, at a minimum, hundreds of detainees, whose identities are known and unknown, did not survive; many others were killed during the evacuation
Emergency evacuation
Emergency evacuation is the immediate and rapid movement of people away from the threat or actual occurrence of a hazard. Examples range from the small scale evacuation of a building due to a bomb threat or fire to the large scale evacuation of a district because of a flood, bombardment or...
of the camps in the area.
Prijedor massacre
A declarationDeclaration
Declaration may refer to:* Declaration , specifies the identifier, type, and other aspects of language elements* Declaration , when the captain of a cricket team declares its innings closed...
on the Prijedor takeover
Takeover
In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company by another . In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to the acquisition of a private company.- Friendly takeovers :Before a bidder makes an offer for another...
prepared by Bosnian-Serb politicians of the Serbian Democratic Party
Serbian Democratic Party
The Serbian Democratic Party is a political party in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is led by Mladen Bosić...
was read out on Radio Prijedor the day after the takeover and was repeated throughout the day. When planning the anticipated takeover, it was decided that the 400 Serb policemen who would be involved in the takeover would be sufficient for the task. The objective of the takeover was to take over the functions of the president
President
A president is a leader of an organization, company, trade union, university, or country.Etymologically, a president is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
of the municipality, the vice-president of the municipality, the director of the post office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
, the chief of the police etc. In the night of the April 29/30, 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.
ICTY concluded that the takeover by the Serb politicians was as an illegal coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
, which was planned and coordinated a long time 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
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
, army
Army
An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...
and politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
s. One of the leading figures was Milomir Stakić
Milomir Stakic
Milomir Stakić is a Bosnian Serb who was charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, violations of the customs of war and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for his actions in the Prijedor region during the Bosnian War.In the 1991 elections...
, who came to play the dominant role in the political life of the Municipality.
The camp
In May 1992, intensive shelling and infantryInfantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
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 Serb forces rounded up the Bosniak and Croat residents, 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 May 25, 1992, about three weeks after Serbs took control of government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
in the municipality, and two days after the start of large scale military attacks on Bosniak population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
centers, the Serb forces began taking prisoners to the Omarska camp. During the next several weeks, the Serb forces continued to round up Bosniaks and Croats from Kozarac area near Prijedor, and other places in the municipality and send them in the camps. Many of Bosniak and Croat intellectuals and politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
s 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 being repeatedly raped
Mass rape in the Bosnian War
During the Bosnian War many women from all Bosnian ethnic groups were raped. Estimates of the numbers raped range from 20,000 to 50,000. This has been referred to as "mass rape", particularly with regard to the coordinated use of rape as a weapon of war...
in the canteen; bodies of five of them had been exhumed.
The Omarska mine
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
s complex was located about 20 km from the town of Prijedor. The first detainees were taken to the camp sometime in late May 1992 (between 26 and 30 May). The camp buildings were almost completely full and some of the detainees had to be held on 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 Serb authorities documents from Prijedor, there were a total of 3,334 persons held in the camp from May 27 to August 16, 1992. 3,197 of them were Bosniaks (i.e. Bosnian Muslims), 125 were Croats.
Within the area of the Omarska mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
complex that was used for the camp, the camp authorities generally confined the prisoners in three different buildings: the administration building, where interrogation
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
s and killings took place; the crammed hangar
Hangar
A hangar is a closed structure to hold aircraft or spacecraft in protective storage. Most hangars are built of metal, but other materials such as wood and concrete are also sometimes used...
building; the "white house," where the inmates were tortured; and on a cement courtyard
Courtyard
A court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. These areas in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court....
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
Summary execution
A summary execution is a variety of execution in which a person is killed on the spot without trial or after a show trial. Summary executions have been practiced by the police, military, and paramilitary organizations and are associated with guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, terrorism, and...
.
With the arrival of the first detainees, permanent guard posts were established around the camp, 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 meters. The faces of the detainees were distorted and bloodstained and the walls were covered with blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
. From the beginning, the detainees were beaten, with fists, rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
butts and wooden and metal sticks. The guards mostly hit the heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
and kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
s, when they had decided to beat someone to death. In the "garage", between 150-160 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
Bread
Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...
. 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 by 15 metres 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
Skin
-Dermis:The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It also harbors many Mechanoreceptors that provide the sense of touch and heat...
and hair
Hair
Hair is a filamentous biomaterial, that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Found exclusively in mammals, hair is one of the defining characteristics of the mammalian class....
. In the camp one could hear the moaning and wailing of people who were being beaten up.
The detainees at Omarska had one meal
Meal
A meal is an instance of eating, specifically one that takes place at a specific time and includes specific, prepared food.Meals occur primarily at homes, restaurants, and cafeterias, but may occur anywhere. Regular meals occur on a daily basis, typically several times a day...
a day. The food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
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. Ed Vulliamy
Ed Vulliamy
Ed Vulliamy is a British journalist and writer. His mother is the children's author and illustrator Shirley Hughes and his grandfather the Liverpool store owner Thomas Hughes. He was educated at the independent University College School and at Hertford College, Oxford before becoming a journalist...
, a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, testified that when he visited the camp, the detainees were in a 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 to be terrified. The detainees drank water from a river that was polluted with industrial waste and many suffered from constipation or dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
. 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.
Murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
, and abuse
Physical abuse
Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Belting*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...
of prisoners was common. Detainees were kept in inhuman conditions and an atmosphere of extreme mental and physical violence pervaded the camp. The camp guards and frequent visitors who came to the camps used all types of weapons and instruments to beat and otherwise physically abuse the detainees. In particular, Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat political and civic leaders, intellectuals, the wealthy, and non-Serbs who were considered as "extremists" or to have resisted the Bosnian Serbs were especially subjected to beatings and mistreatment which often resulted in death.
In addition, Omarska and Keraterm camp
Keraterm camp
Keraterm camp was a concentration camp near the town of Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War and genocide from 1992 to 1995. The camp was founded by the authorities of Republika Srpska and was used to collect and confine civilians of Bosniak and Bosnian Croat...
s also operated in a manner designed to discriminate and subjugate the non-Serbs by inhumane acts and cruel treatment. These acts included the brutal living conditions imposed on the prisoners. There was a deliberate policy of overcrowding and lack of basic necessities of life, including inadequate food
Starvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
, polluted water, insufficient or non-existent medical care and unhygienic and cramped conditions. The prisoners all suffered serious psychological and physical deterioration
Deterioration
Deterioration is a term now commonly used in health care, to describe worsening of a patient's condition. It is often used as a shortened form of 'deterioration not recognised or not acted upon'. Much work to reduce harm from deterioration has been undertaken by the National Patient Safety Agency...
and were in a state of constant fear.
Killings were usually by shooting, beating or cutting of throats, although on one night of frenzied killing, prisoners were incinerated on a pyre of burning tires. The dead would be loaded onto trucks by their friends or with bulldozer
Bulldozer
A bulldozer is a crawler equipped with a substantial metal plate used to push large quantities of soil, sand, rubble, etc., during construction work and typically equipped at the rear with a claw-like device to loosen densely-compacted materials.Bulldozers can be found on a wide range of sites,...
s. Sometimes prisoners were taken to dig the graves; they did not return. On the basis of the evidence presented at the Stakić trial, the Trial Chamber finds that over a hundred people were killed in late July 1992 in the Omarska camp. Around 200 people from Hambarine arrived in the Omarska camp sometime in July 1992. They were initially accommodated in the structure known as the White House. Early in the morning, around 01:00 or 02:00 on July 17, 1992, gunshots were heard that continued until dawn. Dead bodies were seen in front of the White House. The camp guards, one of whom was recognised as Zivko Marmat, were shooting rounds into the bodies. Everyone was given an extra bullet that was shot in their heads. The bodies were then loaded onto a truck and taken away. There were about 180 bodies in total.
The Omarska camp was closed immediately after a visit by foreign journalists in early August. On 6 or 7 August 1992, the detainees at Omarska were divided into groups and transported in buses to different destinations. About 1,500 people were transported on 20 buses.
Death toll
As part of the ethnic cleansing operations, these four camps helped the Crisis Committee of the Serbian District of Prijedor to reduce the non-Serb population of Prijedor from more than 50,000 in 1992 to little more than 3,000 in 1995, and even fewer subsequently. While precise calculations about the number who actually died in these camps are difficult to make, US State Department officials, along with representatives of other Western governments, have estimated that between 4,000 and 5,000 people perished at Omarska.A member of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
(UN) Commission of Experts testified during the Duško Tadić
Duško Tadic
Duško Tadić is a Bosnian Serb war criminal, former SDS leader in Kozarac and a former member of the paramilitary forces supporting the attack on the district of Prijedor...
trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
(ICTY) that their number was in the thousands, but she could not be precise, despite the fact that Serbian officials confirmed there were no large scale releases of prisoners sent there. A member of the Crisis Committee, Simo Drljača, who served as chief of police
Chief of police
A Chief of Police is the title typically given to the top official in the chain of command of a police department, particularly in North America. Alternate titles for this position include Commissioner, Superintendent, and Chief constable...
for Prijedor, has stated that there were 6,000 "informative conversations" (meaning interrogation
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
s) in Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje, and that 1,503 non-Serbs were transferred from those three camps to Manjača camp
Manjaca camp
Manjača camp was a concentration camp on mountain Manjača near the city of Banja Luka in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Croatian War and Bosnian War from 1991 to 1995...
, leaving 4,497 unaccounted for according to Human Rights Watch.
International reaction
In early August 1992, reporters Ed VulliamyEd Vulliamy
Ed Vulliamy is a British journalist and writer. His mother is the children's author and illustrator Shirley Hughes and his grandfather the Liverpool store owner Thomas Hughes. He was educated at the independent University College School and at Hertford College, Oxford before becoming a journalist...
(The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
), Penny Marshall, and Ian Williams (ITN and Channel 4 News
Channel 4 News
Channel 4 News is the news division of British television broadcaster Channel 4. It is produced by ITN, and has been in operation since the broadcaster's launch in 1982.-Channel 4 News:...
) gained access to Omarska camp. Their reporting served as one of the catalysts of a UN effort to investigate war crimes committed in the conflict. The camp was closed less than a month after its exposure caused international uproar.
1997-2000 controversy
There was academic and media controversy regarding the events that took place in Omarska and Trnopolje in 1992, due to claims of false reporting and "lies". These allegations, promoted by the state-controlled Radio Television of SerbiaRadio Television of Serbia
Radio Television of Serbia or Serbian Broadcasting Corporation is the public broadcaster in Serbia. It broadcasts and produces a variety of news, drama, and sports programming through radio, television and the Internet. RTS is, since July 2001, a member of the European Broadcasting Union. RTS is...
and the British Living Marxism
Living Marxism
Living Marxism was a British magazine, originally launched in 1988 as the journal of the British Revolutionary Communist Party . It was later rebranded as LM and folded in March 2000 following an adverse ruling in a libel lawsuit brought by the British news corporation, Independent Television News...
(LM) paper, prompted the Independent Television News (ITN) network to accuse the LM of libel; the ITN won the case in 2000, effectively forcing the paper to close down.
Trials
The Republika Srpska officials responsible for running the camp have since been indicted and found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes.- Camp commandants Miroslav Kvočka, Dragoljub Prcač, Milojica Kos, and Mlađo Radić, and a local taxi driver, Zoran ŽigićZoran ŽigicZoran Žigić is a Bosnian Serb who was charged with violation of the customs of war and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for his actions in the Prijedor region including crimes at the Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm camps during the Bosnian...
were all found guilty of crimes against humanity. Kvočka, Prcač, Kos and Radić were sentenced to five, six, seven and 20 years respectively; Žigić was given the longest term of 25 years.
- Željko Mejakić was found guilty of crimes against humanity (murder, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, and other inhumane acts) as a direct perpetrator of one instance of mistreatment and under the theory of command responsibility as the de facto commander of Omarska camp. He was also found guilty under the theory of joint criminal enterprise for furthering the camp’s system of mistreatment and persecution of detainees. Defendant Mejakić was sentenced to 21 years’ long-term imprisonment.
- Momčilo Gruban was found guilty of crimes against humanity (murder, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, and other inhumane acts) under the theory of command responsibility for crimes committed in the Omarska camp, and under the theory of joint criminal enterprise. Defendant Gruban was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment.
- Duško Knežević was found guilty of crimes against humanity (murder, torture, sexual violence, persecution, and other inhumane acts) as a direct perpetrator of crimes committed in the Omarska and KeratermKeraterm campKeraterm camp was a concentration camp near the town of Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War and genocide from 1992 to 1995. The camp was founded by the authorities of Republika Srpska and was used to collect and confine civilians of Bosniak and Bosnian Croat...
camps. He was also found guilty under the theory of joint criminal enterprise for furthering the Omarska and Keraterm camps’ systems of mistreatment and persecution of detainees. Defendant Knežević was sentenced to 31 years’ long-term imprisonment.
The Judgment of the ICJ
The ICJ presented its judgment in Bosnian Genocide Case on 26 February 2007, in which it had examined atrocities committed in detention camps, including Omarska, in relation to Article II (b) of the Genocide Convention. The Court stated in its judgment:Exhumations
In 2004, a mass grave a few hundred meters from the Omarska site, unearthed the remains of 456 persons from the camp. "There is no doubt whatsoever that there are hundreds of bodies as yet unfound within the mine of Omarska and its vicinity" said Amor Mašović, president of the Bosnian government's Commission for Tracing Missing Persons. The International Commission on Missing PersonsInternational Commission on Missing Persons
The International Commission on Missing Persons addresses the issue of persons missing as a result of armed conflicts, violations of human rights and natural disasters...
(ICMP) has been active in advocating the exhumation and identification of their bodies from mass graves around the area; with their help, a number of victims have been identified through DNA testing.
Memorial controversy
The Mittal Steel company purchased the Omarska mining complex and planned to resume extraction of iron ore from the site. Mittal Steel announced in Banja Luka on December 1, 2005 that the company would build and finance a memorial in the 'White House' but the project was later abandoned. Many Bosnian Serbs believe there should not even be a memorial, while many Bosniaks believe it should not be built until all the victims have been located and only then if the whole mine - which is currently working again - is used for the memorial site.See also
- Bosnian GenocideBosnian GenocideThe term Bosnian Genocide refers to either the genocide committed by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica in 1995 or the ethnic cleansing campaign that took place throughout areas controlled by the Bosnian Serb Army during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War....
- Serbian war crimes in the Yugoslav Wars
- Dretelj campDretelj campDretelj camp was a concentration camp run by the Croatian Defence Forces and later by the Croatian Defence Council during the Bosnian War.-The camp:The camp was located near Čapljina and Medjugorje in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina...
- Gabela campGabela campGabela camp was a concentration camp run by the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia and Croatian Defence Council in Gabela, the camp was located several kilometres south of Čapljina.-The camp:...
- Heliodrom campHeliodrom CampHeliodrom camp was a concentration camp operated between September 1992 and April 1994 by the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia and Croatian Defence Council to detain Bosniaks and other non-Croats during the Bosnian War, it was located in Rodoc, just south of Mostar town, in Mostar...
- Keraterm campKeraterm campKeraterm camp was a concentration camp near the town of Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War and genocide from 1992 to 1995. The camp was founded by the authorities of Republika Srpska and was used to collect and confine civilians of Bosniak and Bosnian Croat...
- Manjača campManjaca campManjača camp was a concentration camp on mountain Manjača near the city of Banja Luka in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Croatian War and Bosnian War from 1991 to 1995...
- Trnopolje campTrnopolje campTrnopolje camp was a concentration camp established in the village of Trnopolje near the city of Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first months of the Bosnian War.-History:...
- Uzamnica campUzamnica campUzamnica camp was a concentration camp established in 1992 by JNA forces for the Bosniak civilian prisoners during the Bosnian war.Many of the Bosniaks who were not immediately killed in the Višegrad massacre were detained at various locations in the town, including the former JNA military...
- Vilina VlasVilina VlasVilina Vlas is a health spa that served as one of the main detention facilities where Bosniak prisoners were beaten, tortured and sexually assaulted during the Bosnian War, it is located about seven kilometers south-east of Višegrad, on the way to Gorazde....
- Vojno campVojno campVojno camp was a detention camp set up by the Croatian Defence Council from June 1993 to March 1994, to detain tens of thousands of Bosniaks in the Mostar municipality...
External links
- Cases in trial or on appeal against verdict, Mejakić Željko and others, Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Unlawful Confinement, by Ed Vulliamy for the Crimes of War Project
- AWAY FROM GUARDS, INMATES WHISPER OF ABUSE, The Washington Post, August 11, 1992
- THE INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA CHARGES 21 SERBS WITH ATROCITIES COMMITTED INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE OMARSKA DEATH CAMP UN, ICTY Press Release 1995]
- Who cares as judgement falls on Serb hell camp?, The Guardian, 1996
- Review of the documentary film "Calling the Ghosts", with excerpts from the testimony of Jadranka Cigelj and Nusreta Sivac
- Omarska Camp, Bosnia - Broken Promises of "Never Again" by Kelly D. Askin, "Human Rights", published by American Bar Association
- New battle breaks out over Serb death camp, The Guardian, 2004
- 'We can't forget', The Guardian, 2004
- Ex-foes make peace at Omarska, BBC, 2005
- Bosnia war memorial plan halted, BBC, 2006