prijava
VIŠEGRAD, June 14 (FENA) - Exactly 28 years ago, more than 70 Bosniak civilians, mostly women and children and the elderly, were burned alive in a deliberately instigated fire in Adem Omeragić's house in Pionirska Street in Višegrad. The youngest victim was only two days old. She was burned alive in her mother's arms.
A grenade was thrown at the house, and then the soldiers shot at those who tried to escape by fleeing through the window. Most of the victims were from the village of Koritnik, where they were picked up and ordered to board buses, which were supposed to take them to Kladanj to a free territory.
Every year, the Association "Women Victims of War" and "Višegrad 92" mark this anniversary by throwing white roses into the Drina River from the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge, thus remembering of all the horrific crimes committed in Višegrad during the last war.
This year, the commemoration of the crime is planned for June 27, the day when several civilians were also set on fire in another house in the Višegrad neighborhood of Bikavac, owned by Meho Aljić.
In 1992, members of the "Avengers" paramilitary formation, led by Milan and Sredoje Lukić, imprisoned and set fire to more than 130 civilians burning them alive in these two houses in Višegrad.
President of the association "Women Victims of War", Bakira Hasečić, in a conversation with FENA remembered one of the most terrible war crimes that had happened during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and on June 14, says Hasečić, was the day her neighbors were set on fire.
She received one of the surviving victims into her home. It was Sumbula Zeba, the daughter of Adem Omeragić, and when she saw her she did not look like a human being, says Hasečić, who had described Zeba's state in her testimony before The Hague Tribunal, but also in the Court of BiH because no one could have believed the story that Sumbula Zeba had told at the time.
"For at least two hours, she kept repeating that everyone in that house had burned to death, that her child and other family members had been burned to death. We bandaged her wounds, and even today, while I am saying this, I only see her image in front of me," added Hasešić, wondering how a man could have done something like that to another human being.
The image of Sumbula Zeba haunted her for a long time, which is why she launched a campaign to restore the location of the site that became known as 'living bonfire' in Pionirska Street and they managed to do so, and now it has finally been decided that the house will not be demolished as originally planned by the regulation plan and will be connected to water and electricity network.
"That battle lasted for six years since we renovated the house, even though the police put terrible pressure on us during the renovation of the house, which made works even more difficult," says Hasečić.
Milan Lukić was sentenced to life imprisonment and Sredoje Lukić to 27 years in prison by a final verdict in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for the war crime in Pionirska Street.
The association "Women Victims of War" was the one that fought for Radomir Šušnjar, who was hiding in France, to be extradited to BiH, which happened in June 2018, and Hasečić begged him during the trial to finally disclose the location of the remains of the burned and killed Bosniaks of Višegrad.
"During the trial, he constantly repeated that it was not him. He was sentenced to 20 years and justice was somehow served, but anger still remains against the citizens of Višegrad who might know where the bones of those killed are but still choose not to disclose information. Even if they know that their fellow citizens had been thrown into the Drina River, they should speak up," Hasečić pointed out.
At the end of the conversation with FENA, the president of the association "Women Victims of War" Bakira Hasečić called on everyone who might know something about the location of the remains of the victims to disclose it because she still believes that "no mother has raised a son to be a war criminal".
(FENA) S. R.
