23rd anniversary of the beginning of the disbandment of the notorious Manjača camp marked

Organized by the Association of Camp Victims in BiH, the Regional Association Banja Luka, the Association of Camp Victims Sanski Most, and the Association of Camp Victims Ključ, the 23rd anniversary of the beginning of the disbandment of the Manjača concentration camp was marked today, reports the Patria News Agency.

The Manjača concentration camp was formed at the military training ground above Banja Luka in 1991, where Croats from the battlefields in the Republic of Croatia were imprisoned.

As part of the marking of this anniversary, representatives of the city authorities also visited the mass grave Bunarevi, in the municipality of Ribnik, where the mortal remains of 24 camp inmates from Manjača were exhumed.

After the beginning of the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this camp was made operational to receive camp inmates of Bosniak and Croat nationality from Sanski Most, Ključ, Prijedor, Kotor Varoš, Doboj, and many other places.

- Camp inmates were held in Manjača in inhumane and animal conditions, in stables that were previously used to house animals. They were beaten and abused daily, given barely enough water and food for biological survival, and forced into labor, emphasized the president of the Association of Camp Victims of BiH, Jasmin Mešković.

A large number of camp inmates were brutally killed in this concentration camp, and mass graves containing the bodies of the murdered were found within this training ground.

Around 5,000 camp inmates, civilians, Bosniaks, and Croats passed through the camp. Most of the camp inmates were released on November 14, 1992, and the camp was closed a month later. The remaining camp inmates were exchanged, and a group of camp inmates was transferred to the Batković camp near Bijeljina, reports BHT.