News in English     | 23.05.2019. 21:22 |

Collective burial for the victims of Korićani cliffs killings on July 20

FENA Press release

SARAJEVO, May 23 (FENA) - Collective burial and a funeral for some of the many people who were killed at Korićanske Stijene (Korićani Cliffs) near Prijedor during wartime and then buried in mass graves will be held on July 20, after the victims’ remains are identified.

The Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina said that a collective funeral will be held at Vedro Polje stadium in the village of Hambarine near Prijedor on July 20, and the victims’ bodies will then be buried at locations chosen by their families.

“It still cannot be said with certainty how many people will be buried, considering that the families have still not officially identified the mortal remains for which the results of DNA analysis have arrived,” Missing Persons Institute spokesperson Emza Fazlić told BIRN.

According to the Missing Persons Institute, during the last exhumation conducted in the Korićanske Stijene area in 2017, a total of 135 people’s remains were exhumed and more than 1,000 samples sent for DNA analysis.

Fazlić explained that the tests carried out so far have established 62 identities, while a certain number of samples showed that the remains found in the grave belonged to victims who had been identified previously.

“For now, 18 families have confirmed they would be present at the identification once it has been scheduled and will most probably give consent to burial of their family members,” Fazlic said.

Korićanske Stijene (Korićani Cliffs) are steep cliffs on Mount Vlašić and were the site of a massacre of some 200 Bosniak and Croat civilians by Bosnian Serb forces in August 1992.

During the war, Naila Bajric’s husband Serif and 21-year-old son Zafir were killed at Koricanske Stijene. Her husband’s body, as well as a part of her son’s body, were found during the most recent exhumation at the site.

“I found my son in 2005. Two bones… I buried those two bones,” Bajrić told BIRN.

Bajrić recently visited the Šejkovaca Identification Center in Sanski Most to see the remains of her loved ones.

“I wanted to take my child into my arms one more time. I gave birth to a whole child and now I am collecting his parts,” she said.

Missing Persons Institute data suggests that around 3,200 people went missing from the Prijedor area in the war, and the search for around 700 of them is still ongoing.

A total of six mass graves have been discovered in the Korićanske Stijene area. The International Commission on Missing Persons says that after all the exhumations conducted in the Korićanske Stijene area until April this year, DNA matching has so far enabled the reliable identification of 179 people who disappeared there, as well as the connection of over 700 separated body parts.

Saša Kulukčija, the spokesperson for the Western Balkans at the International Commission on Missing Persons, said that the biggest obstacle to the search for the remaining missing people is the lack of credible information about hidden graves.

Kulukčija appealed to anyone who might have information about such graves to share their information anonymously using an ICMP application called Prijavi lokaciju (Report a Location).

There have been several convictions so far. Darko Mrđa, a former member of a Bosnian Serb special police unit from Prijedor, admitted he was guilty of committing crimes at Korićanske Stijene and was sentenced to 17 years in prison by the Hague Tribunal.

Ten other former policemen from Prijedor were also convicted by the Bosnian state court and given lengthy jail sentences.

Saša Zečević, Radoslav Knežević and Marinko Ljepoja were given 23 years each, Zoran Babić got 22 years, Milorad Škrbić and Dušan Janković got 21 years each, and Željko Stojnić got 15 years.

The three others – Damir Ivanković, Ljubiša Ćetić and Gordan Đurić – signed guilt admission agreements. Ivanković was given 14 years in prison, Ljubiša Ćetić got 13 years and Gordan Đurić got eight years, BIRN reports.

(FENA) S. R.

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