Crime at Hrastova glavica: 124 camp inmates, including doctor Eso Sadiković, thrown to their deaths

Organized by the Regional Association of Camp Inmates Banja Luka, the Association of Camp Inmates Sanski Most „Prijedor 92“, and Kozarac“, at the Hrastova glavica site, near the village of Podvidača, the 24th anniversary of the murder of 124 Prijedor camp inmates was marked.

The anniversary was attended by family members of the murdered victims, representatives of religious and socio-political life, non-governmental organizations and associations, and numerous citizens. The attendees were addressed at this location by writer and former camp inmate Muhidin Šarić, representatives of camp inmate associations from Sanski Most and Prijedor, Nihad Ključanin and Samir Duratović, as well as a representative of the victims' relatives.

Dissatisfaction was expressed that those responsible for this crime, both the commanders and the executors, are still evading justice, and the competent authorities were called upon to apprehend and punish those responsible, whose names, as stated, are well known.

24 years ago, on August 5, 1992, the victims of Hrastova glavica were taken from the Prijedor camps Omarska and Keraterm towards Sanski Most, allegedly for an exchange. Since the exchange did not take place, on their return, they were brought before the natural pit of Hrastova glavica, where they were shot in groups of three and thrown into the natural pit over 20 meters deep. Only Ibrahim Ferhatović survived the shooting. He managed to reach his native Hambarine, where he recounted this horrific story, but was later killed during the ethnic cleansing of the Prijedor region. Nevertheless, the story of the crime at Hrastova glavica survived, and this mass grave was exhumed in 1998.

The remains of the murdered camp inmates, including the well-known Prijedor doctor and United Nations expert Esad Sadiković, as well as two skeletons of victims from World War II, were found during the exhumation. In the meantime, 120 victims have been identified and buried under their names and surnames. The Hague Tribunal, in its verdict against Milomir Stakić, determined that on August 5, 1992, Prijedor policeman Radovan Vokić came with a list to the Omarska death camp and took a group of 124 camp inmates from there. These were inmates who had survived the shooting in room three of the Keraterm camp and represented inconvenient witnesses for the Prijedor authorities.

Shortly thereafter, British journalists Ed Vulliamy and Penny Marshall revealed the truth about the existence of concentration camps to the world, but it was already too late for the camp inmates who were taken towards Hrastova glavica.