25th Anniversary of the Closure of the Omarska Camp Marked, Survivors Live with Painful Memories

Organised by the Association of Camp Inmates of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the 25th anniversary of the closure of the Omarska camp near Prijedor was marked today. In just four months, from May to August 1992, more than 8,000 non-Serb residents of Prijedor passed through the camp. More than 700 people were killed.

Members of the Army and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Republika Srpska captured the population of Prijedor and surrounding areas, who were subjected to torture, hunger, thirst, and rape.

From the Association of Camp Inmates "Prijedor 92", it was recalled that during 1992, more than 60,000 residents of Bosniak and Croat ethnicity were expelled from Prijedor, half of whom were imprisoned in the camps of Omarska, Keraterm, and Trnopolje.

For former camp inmates, each anniversary brings back painful memories of the difficult days in the camp when they feared for their own lives.

The President of the Association of Camp Inmates of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jasmin Mešković, said that surviving camp inmates suffer permanent trauma due to the horrors they experienced.

- There were 100 inmates in rooms with tin walls measuring 30 square metres. Without water and food - described Mešković, stating that for the murder of 800 people there cannot be individual responsibility, but rather an organised system called for the killing of the non-Serb population.

Some of the inmates of the Omarska camp were killed at Korićanske stijene and Hrastova glavica, and a large number of inmates died from injuries. The well-known doctor Eso Sadiković also endured torture and abuse, and his body was found in the pit at Hrastova glavica.

At the beginning of August 1992, renowned American and British journalists Roy Gutman, Penny Marshall, Ed Vulliamy, and Ian Williams discovered the Prijedor camps, and images of the horror spread around the world.