Puhalo: Today is the day when, by humiliating Bosniaks in Prijedor, we humiliated ourselves

On this day, May 31, 1992, the authorities of Prijedor, via radio, ordered the non-Serb population to display white ribbons on visible parts of their bodies and white sheets on their houses. The Army and Police of Republika Srpska thus identified non-Serbs in Prijedor, after which they were taken to camps and killed, NAP reports.

Less than two months earlier, at the beginning of April, non-Serbs in Bijeljina were marked and killed in the same way.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and some other countries, May 31 has been observed for several years as White Ribbon Day.

However, the Serb authorities still refuse to acknowledge the crimes against non-Serbs in Prijedor and surrounding areas. They deny the existence of the crimes. They also dispute the Tomašica mass grave near Prijedor, which is one of the largest mass graves found on European soil.

In the verdict of the Hague Tribunal against the first president of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadžić, sentenced to 40 years in prison for crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Prijedor is also mentioned as a place where the Serb army committed crimes.

Goran Zorić from the Prijedor association "Kvart" tried a few days ago to publish a remembrance of the murdered children of Prijedor in local newspapers, but the newspaper editors did not allow it. During the suffering in Prijedor in 1992, more than 100 children were killed, mostly Bosniaks and several children of Croatian nationality.

Prominent Banja Luka political analyst and sociologist Srđan Puhalo said that today is "the day when, by humiliating Bosniaks in Prijedor, we humiliated ourselves," NAP reports.