Personal testimony · Višegrad · 1992
Bakira Hasečić: The Voice of the Women Who Survived in Višegrad
Bakira Hasečić, a native of Višegrad, survived sexual violence in 1992 and lost seventeen members of her family in the war. As president of the Association "Žena – žrtva rata" (Woman – Victim of War), she gathers evidence against perpetrators and has testified before the Court of BiH and the Hague Tribunal. Her story also raises the question of the justice that survivors from Vilina Vlas have still not received.
Where and when
Višegrad
- Date
- 1992
- Place
- Višegrad, Perućac, Vilina Vlas
- Coordinates
- 43.79° N · 19.29° E
Višegrad in the Spring of 1992
After the takeover of Višegrad in the spring of 1992, the local Serb leaderships launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Bosniaks. Part of that campaign was sexual violence against Bosniak women and girls. According to victims' statements, women were taken away and abused in the police station, in the sports centre and in a child welfare institution.
A special place in the memory of the survivors is held by the spa hotel Vilina Vlas, about seven kilometres from Višegrad. There Milan Lukić established the headquarters of his group, known as the "Bijeli orlovi" (White Eagles). The hotel became a camp in which Bosniak women and girls were detained and raped – according to estimates, at least two hundred of them.
A Personal Loss
One of the women who survived sexual violence in Višegrad in 1992 is Bakira Hasečić. She speaks publicly about what she experienced, under her own name. During the war, seventeen members of her family were killed, and her sister died in Vilina Vlas.
For some of her closest relatives, the family long remained without answers. Only in 2012, about twenty years after their disappearance, were members of Bakira Hasečić's family identified among the victims whose remains were found in Lake Perućac.
Testimony
Bakira Hasečić decided not to remain silent. According to her testimony, more than fifty girls were raped in a single night. She also testifies that five or six women who survived rape later took their own lives.
She heads the Association "Žena – žrtva rata", based in Sarajevo, which gathers evidence about perpetrators and helps victims. According to available claims, the association contributed to the filing of indictments against 29 persons before the Hague Tribunal (ICTY) and against more than 70 persons before the courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bakira Hasečić herself testified as a prosecution witness in the proceedings against Željko Lelek and several times before the ICTY.
Another woman survivor also spoke to the BBC about her detention in Višegrad.
Verdicts and Gaps in Justice
On 12 January 2009, the Court of BiH issued a final verdict sentencing Željko Lelek, a member of the Public Security Station Višegrad (MUP RS), to 16 years in prison for crimes against humanity in Višegrad, including rape.
On 20 July 2009, the ICTY sentenced Milan Lukić to life imprisonment for murders and other crimes committed in Višegrad. A late prosecution motion to expand the indictment with counts of rape and sexual slavery was rejected, so Lukić was neither charged nor convicted for sexual violence – even though it was precisely his headquarters in Vilina Vlas that became a camp.
In the same year, Amnesty International warned that no one had been charged for the rapes in Vilina Vlas and called on the Prosecutor's Office of BiH to launch an investigation. "The raped women of Višegrad deserve justice too," said Nicola Duckworth of Amnesty International at the time.