Black March 1992: Massacre of Bosniaks in Bijeljina, Batković Death Camp

The Batković camp near Bijeljina was established on April 1, 1992, and from the very first day it became a torture site for Bosniaks, reports the Patria news agency.

In it, Serbs held prisoners in water up to their necks, their legs were beaten, skin was flayed from their backs... Prisoners begged to be killed, but the executioners reveled in torturing helpless people.

More than 4,000 Bosniaks passed through this death camp. A large number died from hunger, torture, and women, mothers and their daughters were raped.

As early as March 1992, the suffering of Bosniaks in Bijeljina began. The first massacre against them was carried out by armed units from Serbia under the command of Željko Ražnjatović Arkan, the JNA, Šešelj's "White Eagles", special units of the federal SUP, and others. That was just the beginning of the persecution.

"They are two hangars 50 x 30 meters where grain was stored... we were guarded by some military police with shifts of 50 guards. We were notorious for Marko, who was a guard in the Zenica KPD. We did all physical work, from digging in the field, construction, to digging Chetnik trenches on the front lines. In an ambush near Teočak, 17 prisoners were killed. Only Nihad Ključanin survived, who cut the tarpaulin with a nail clipper, along with one other young man. Two prisoners were slaughtered by a Chetnik from Ključ, recognizing his neighbors in front of 'Žitopromet' in Bijeljina, where we were loading. One was named Islamagić. They were slaughtered with a bottle neck, is the harrowing testimony of one of the surviving prisoners.

N. N. from Cerska, a Bosniak woman, a detainee in the Serbian concentration camp Pilica near Zvornik, stated that after two months of her detention in that camp, she was deported to Batković. In her statement, she testifies: 

"They led me into a room where there were about 100 girls aged 13 to 25. There I experienced, together with all those girls, every possible humiliation..." 

She further recounted how the Serbs took them during the day to various estates to do heavy agricultural work, at least nine hours a day, often forcing them to remove all their clothes and thus, naked, dig.

The Association of Prisoners of Bijeljina-Janja, in cooperation with the Association of Prisoners of Bosnia and Herzegovina and associations from the RS and Brčko District, this year on April 1 also organizes a visit to the Batković camp, on the occasion of 23 years since the camp's establishment.  

The gathering will be attended by prisoners from Sanski Most, Ključ, Prijedor, Brčko and other places, as well as figures from the political leadership, the Islamic Community and the local community.