By throwing 224 roses down the cliff at the site of the mass shooting, family members of the victims, former camp inmates, representatives of all levels of government, many citizens marked the 31st anniversary of the brutal mass shooting of 224 camp inmates who were previously brought to the execution site at the location of Korićanski stijene, on the Vlašić mountain. under the pretext of going on an exchange, reports Anadolu.
Family members of the murdered, former inmates, numerous citizens, representatives and members of victims’ associations, by throwing roses down the rock into a 300-meter-deep abyss, remembered the shot inmates with tears and prayers, at the place where they were killed after they were ordered to line up along the edge way towards the cliff and kneel down. Then came shots that lasted, according to the testimony of the participants, the criminals, for more than 15 minutes.
The commemoration was attended by numerous citizens, family members of the murdered, then the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina Elmedin Konaković, the Minister of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH Sevlid Hurtić, the envoy of the member of the Presidency of BiH Denis Bećirović Mehmed Pargan, Mufti of Travnički Ahmed ef. Adilović, President of the Union of Prisoners in Bosnia and Herzegovina Seid Omerović, and presidents of regional unions of prison inmates and victims’ associations.
In his address to the audience, Minister Hurtić reminded the victims of the execution sites in places like Ahmić, Dretelje, Omarska, Srebrenica, Koričanski stijene and numerous others that are not talked about enough:
“The number 224 should be in our heads every day, to remember 224 people, people. 224 people were liquidated and thrown into this abyss. Let’s not forget that number and mention it to our children.”
Minister Konaković emphasized that it is more important than ever that “the truth about the suffering of our people is promoted and advocated because the other side is working to change the facts in Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
“You have witnessed in just the last few weeks the images of the suffering of our people that those who still advocate fascist policies played at their rallies, that they wrote the names of the murdered children of Sarajevo on the lists of their murdered children. You are witnessing that today the persecution of those who honorably defended Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Konaković reminded.
Konaković pointed out that the testimonies of those who committed crimes are particularly gruesome and contain all the brutality of the politics that still lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina today.
The Dayton arrangement obliges today’s representatives in government to sit and talk with those, as he reminded, who deny the genocide, but no one will ever trade in the truth.
“United in the pain we share today because of this and all other sufferings, we are always ready to defend Bosnia and Herzegovina and every inch of it,” said Konaković.
Mufti Adilović said that today’s commemoration and everything that happened here and at other execution sites is a “warning to all of us”.
– Hamdija Joldić got off the “bus of death” –
Hamdija Joldić accidentally got off the bus 31 years ago, which drove his fellow citizens to their deaths.
He was imprisoned in three camps in Prijedor, Keraterm, Omaraska, and then in Trnopolje.
“At that time, I had a group for which I cooked. I guess I was a cook, before all that. When those buses with Major (Slobodan, op.a.) Kuruzović were organized, five buses needed to be filled. I know people who were paying to get on those buses, not knowing they were going to their deaths. I got on one of those buses, went through the whole bus and something said to me ‘get out’ and I got out the front door. People asked me why I went out, and I said that I had some uncooked beans left for those in my group, and I returned to finish them,” Joldić recalled.
He said that the next morning “that damned Major Kuruzović told a lie that ours were met by our own people and killed on Vlašić, and it was clear that it was a notorious lie”.
“I also know people who survived the massacre. We are fighters who returned and we live there in that area, because there are few fighters like us from Kozar,” said Joldić.
The members of the Association of Prisoners in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Regional Association of Prisoners Associations of the Banja Luka Region, the Association of Prisoners “Prijedor 92”, the Association of Prisoners Kozarac, and the Association of Families of the Dead and Missing “Vrbanja – Kotor Varoš” Travnik, realized the event of commemoration and remembrance on 31 anniversary of the terror of shooting 224 inmates.
– Crime on Koričanski stijene –
As announced by the Union of Prisoners in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the crime against the prisoners was committed by members of the Intervention Platoon of the Republika Srpska Police from Prijedor, under the pretext of “taking the prisoners for exchange”.
As the representatives of the camp inmates recalled, upon arrival at the location of the Korićans, the criminals took groups of camp inmates over the abyss, and began the crime by ordering the camp inmates to line up and kneel over the abyss of Korićanski stijene. With shots in the back of the camp inmates, and with the shouts of the police that they are exchanging here “the dead for the dead, and the living for the living”, they kill them for the second time by falling into the Korićan abyss, and the third time they kill the survivors by throwing bombs into the abyss after them, it is stated. in the statement.
The crime over the abyss of Korićanski stijene, like many others during the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina, was committed for the purpose of realizing the project of ethnically clean areas, only for certain peoples, peoples who in their philosophy consider themselves to be worth more than others, the statement of the Alliance states.
For the crime at Korićanske stijene, 11 convicts received prison terms, for a total of 200 years. The search for 80 percent of the skeletal remains is still ongoing because the bodies of the murdered camp inmates were transferred and buried in other locations.
Darko Mrđa at 17, Damir Ivanković at 14, Gordan Đurić at 8, Ljubiša Četić at 13, Zoran Babić at 22, Milorad Škrbić at 21, Dušan Janković at 21, Željko Stojnić at 15, Saša Zečević to 23, Marinko Lepoja to 23 and Radoslav Knežević to 23 years in prison.
The men, previously imprisoned in Prijedor camps, under the pretext of exchange, were lined up on Korićanske stijene by members of the intervention squad of the then Republika Srpska police from Prijedor.
Ordering them to kneel, they shot them in the back, after which their bodies fell into an abyss more than 300 meters deep.
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