War horrors from Odžak: Torn from her mother's arms and raped

The life of a cheerful and happy girl was destroyed in two nights in 1992. Then a 14-year-old, she was raped eight times. Today she says there is no reason to laugh because the images of what she survived keep returning, writes BIRN, reported by the BiH news agency Patria (NAP).

Suzana J. lived with her parents and two sisters in the area of Odžak municipality until May 8, 1992, when the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) occupied the town. Her father was taken away and imprisoned in the elementary school, while she, her mother, and sisters were under house arrest in Novi Grad (Odžak municipality).

She was torn from her mother's arms on July 3, 1992, abused and raped. It was around 11 PM when, she recalls, HVO members "broke down the door".

- They dragged me out by my hair. They beat me there and harassed me. My mother fought with them and all the others. My younger sisters, aged 12 and nine, were there, they also beat them, and my immobile grandmother. They cut my mother's lip, where she still has a scar today - Suzana recounts.

Around her, she claims, eight soldiers took turns.

- They stood in a circle. This one hit me with a rifle, this one pushed me... I fought with them for about half an hour. They beat me and overpowered me. I was all bloody and torn from the beatings and how they dragged me. My mother begged them not to touch me and said she was also Croatian, but it didn't help at all - says Suzana, emphasizing that they then threw her into a van.

Her neighbor, V.L., who was also a minor, was put into another car, as she remembers.

- They laid me down on the back seat, underneath, where the legs are, they placed me there, and these two sat on the seat and put their legs on me. They drove us along a country road through Novi Grad - she says.

Not far from the main road towards Posavska Mahala (Odžak municipality), Suzana continues, the van stopped and seven soldiers took her into a house.

- One of them entered the room with me. He pushed me, threw me down, started slapping and beating me. I begged him not to touch me. He tore my clothes off and managed to rape me. And then he threatened me not to tell anyone, not the police, not anyone, because we would meet again and he would kill me, and that he would kill my father, because he knows he is in prison - Suzana recalls.

A second soldier started to enter the room when, she says, a female voice was heard warning them that the Military Police were coming.

The commander of the Military Police, Mirko Pačak, arrived, who said they had found her neighbor V.L. and soldier M.B., and took them all to the police station in Novi Grad for identification.

- They turned off the lights, and he illuminated the faces of eight soldiers with a flashlight. I recognized the one who, you know, raped me - states Suzana, adding that her neighbor was too afraid to say who had raped her.

Upon returning to the place where she had previously been held with her mother, sisters, and others, Suzana found the house burned down. Her mother, sisters, and others were in another, smaller house nearby.

- During the night, we escaped down through some woods and stayed with my aunt. Mother and the older women were there, and we younger ones hid in the woods, only coming out for something to eat - Suzana recalls, adding that it happened that they didn't eat for two days and drank water from puddles.

Once, on July 12, 1992, when they came for food and headed towards the woods, Suzana recounts, soldiers shot at them and they had to turn back.

She saw a truck full of soldiers. Among them, she explains, was the one who had previously raped her.

- He pulled me out and said, 'Didn't I tell you we would meet again?' They took me and my sister-in-law to Novo Selo and raped us - says Suzana, emphasizing that seven soldiers raped her that night.

Before being raped, she says, she was a cheerful child, simply smiling and happy. When she was raped, she points out, she was confined to the house for a month and claims she would have killed herself if she had found a bomb or a rifle.

- I could never cope with it, I still can't - adds Suzana, emphasizing that the rape is the reason for her poor health, nervousness, and depression.

- I have no reason to laugh, what is there to laugh about... When I watch something, tears start to flow on their own (...) After 23 years, you constantly go back through it. (...) When I get that crisis, nervousness... and the older I get, the worse it gets. You don't know who to turn to, who to talk to, who can help you - explains Suzana, emphasizing that she is fighting to survive in order to be a good mother, wife, and daughter, reported Patria.