Bačić: Mayor of Prijedor refuses to discuss monument to murdered children

(Patria) - Nermina Bačić, aged six, and her brother Nermin, aged 13, were killed along with their mother and nearly 30 other family members in the unadjudicated genocide in the Prijedor area.

Their father, even thirty years later, is still searching for their bones. He has also been seeking, for decades in vain, the construction of a monument to over 100 murdered children.

Fikret Bačić, a representative of the parents of murdered children, was a guest on the morning programme Novi dan na N1.

"There are a few of us living parents whose children were killed. Most parents were killed on the spot along with their children. I am one of those who survived and I initiated the construction of a monument to those children in Prijedor," Bačić said at the beginning of the interview.

He then recounted how, 11 years ago, a request was submitted for the construction of a monument to the murdered children of the city of Prijedor.

"It has been 11 years since we submitted the request to the city authorities of Prijedor for the construction of a monument. Four mayors (including the current one) have come and gone; the previous three accepted talks and we tried to find a solution for the construction. Certain conditions were set for us, which we, the parents, fulfilled. With Mr. Pavlović, the previous mayor, we finalised the agreements; all that remained was to proceed with appointing a working body and building the monument. However, he was replaced, and with the election of the new mayor, Mr. Javor, he halted the negotiations and 'concreted over' everything we had done so far," Bačić said.

"He refuses to talk"
The guest on the N1 programme emphasised that they had tried on several occasions to speak with the current mayor, but that he does not want to.

"In several attempts to talk to him, he simply refuses to talk at all. We tried every possible way to reach him, we had support from international organisations, but the mayor rejected all attempts," Bačić said and added:

"At one point he agreed to a meeting with me and European parliamentarians, but when we reached the door of the building, he said he did not want to receive us and that only we or the European parliamentarians could attend the meeting. We did not want to go separately. The next day, Dodik received the delegation from Europe, but Mr. Javor refused. The process has been halted by the mayor's behaviour; he does not want to discuss this topic."

"Something is not right"

Bačić then said he cannot fathom why the mayor refuses to talk and that he has support from other institutions and officials.

"He is a child of the war, not a participant in the war; he was a child to behave like this towards us parents and the murdered children of the city of Prijedor. Something is not right here; we cannot figure out what it is."

"We have support from international institutions; I spoke with the President of the RS two years ago on this topic; everyone supports us. No one has managed to talk to the mayor to ask why the construction of the monument has been halted."

Fikret Bačić says that to this day, over 600 bodies are still being sought in Prijedor.

"Even today in Prijedor we are searching for over 600 bodies, and in BiH there are 7,560 bodies. We are searching for everyone, not just Bosniaks, all those who went missing and were killed," he said and added:

"We, the citizens, live in coexistence by helping each other, talking, and trying to build something, but our politicians do not want that. I must emphasise that even though we know people who have information that could reveal mass graves, state institutions are not doing their job sufficiently. That is why we have so many undiscovered remains."

Day of White Ribbons

We remind you that today is the thirty-first of May, the Day of White Ribbons. On 31 May 1992, the authorities in Prijedor ordered the non-Serb population to display white cloth on their homes.

By the same order, Bosniaks and Croats had to wear white ribbons on their upper arms in public places.

In the crimes that followed in Prijedor and surrounding areas, 3,176 people were killed, including 102 children.

About 30,000 Prijedor residents of non-Serb ethnicity passed through the Trnopolje, Omarska, and Keraterm camps.

The city authorities in Prijedor do not allow any memorial to commemorate the murdered citizens of Prijedor.