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Omarska camp

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File:Omarska2.jpg
Omarska camp detainees

Omarska camp was a detention camp (also referred to as prison and concentration camp) in Omarska mining town near Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995. The camp existed from about 25 May to about 30 August, 1992, where forces of Republika Srpska (RS) collected and confined more than 3,000 Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats from the municipality of Prijedor. It was officially termed an investigation centre and the detainees were accused by the Serbs for alleged "paramilitary activities". According to ICTY prosecutor the RS forces killed, raped, sexually assaulted, beat and otherwise mistreated the prisoners at Omarska. The objective of the camp was the permanent removal by force of non-Serb inhabitants from the territory of the planned Serbian state (Republika Srpska).

There are however conflicting information about how many people were killed at this camp. According to U.S. State Department and other Western officials between 4,000 and 5,000 persons were killed at Omarska. After the war two mass graves were found near and related to killings at Omarska counting total of 773 bodies. In Prijedor region a total of 62 mass grave sites were uncovered after the war many of which are associated with killings at the Omarska camp. According to many testimonies by the survivors of the camp and due to large number of still missing persons from this region above estimates are not entirely impossible.

Background

File:Omarska 1.jpg
Omarska camp

In May, 1992, intensive shelling of Bosniak areas in the municipality Prijedor caused the Bosniak residents to flee their homes. The majority of them surrendered or were captured by RS forces. As the RS forces rounded up the Bosniak and Bosnian Croat residents, they forced them to march in columns bound for one or another of the prison camps that the RS had established in the municipality. The RS forces pulled many of the detainees from the columns and shot or beat them on the spot.

On about 25 May 1992, about three weeks after RS forcibly took control of government authority in the municipality, and two days after the start of large scale military attacks on Bosniak population centers, the RS forces began taking prisoners to the Omarska camp.

During the next several weeks, the RS forces continued to round up Bosniaks and Croats from Kozarac, another town near Prijedor, and other places in the municipality and interned them in the camps. Many of Prijedor's Bosniaks and Croat intellectuals, professionals and political leaders were sent to Omarska. There were approximately 40 women in the camp while all the other prisoners in the camp were men. Once the news of the camp spread internationally with the camp director claiming there were no women there, most of the women were let go, forced to walk 20km until they reached Prijedor, where their homes had been taken over and inhabited by Serbs.

Within the area of the Omarska mining complex that was used for the camp, the camp authorities generally confined the prisoners in three different buildings: the administration building, where interrogations took place and most of the women were confined; the garage or hangar building; the "white house," a small building where particularly severe beatings were administered; and on a cement courtyard area between the buildings known as the "pista". There was another small building, known as the "red house", where prisoners were sometimes taken but most often did not emerge alive.

Living conditions at Omarska were brutal. Prisoners were crowded together with little or no facilities for personal hygiene. They were fed starvation rations once a day and given only three minutes to get into the canteen area, eat, and get out. The little water they received was ordinarily foul. Prisoners had no changes of clothing and no bedding. They received no medical care.

Severe beatings were commonplace. The camp guards, and others who came to the camp and physically abused the prisoners, used all manner of weapons during these beatings, including wooden batons, metal rods and tools, lengths of thick industrial cable that had metal balls affixed to the end, rifle butts, and knives. Both female and male prisoners were beaten, tortured, raped, sexually assaulted, and humiliated. In addition to regular beatings and abuse, there were incidents of multiple killings and special terror. Many did not survive the camp.

International reaction

In early August 1992, reporters Ed Vulliamy (The Guardian) and Roy Gutman (Newsday) gained access to Omarska camp. They have reported about the atrocities in the camp that further served as one of the catalysts of a United Nations effort to investigate war crimes committed in the conflict. The camp was closed less than a month after its exposure caused international uproar.

Recent developments

Bodies of persons killed in the camp are still being found and identified, while many others are still reported missing.

Some of the RS officials responsible for running the camp have since been indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Some have been convicted while others are still awaiting trials at the ICTY.

More recently Mittal Steel company has purchased the Omarska mining complex and is planning to resume extraction of iron ore from the site. They are also planning a memorial to the victims of the Omarska camp.

See also

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