Edna Dautović: Omarska camp detainee taken away for an "exchange" to the Lisac pit

The Omarska camp

In the summer of 1992, according to data from the survivors' association, 3,334 detainees passed through the Omarska camp near Prijedor, of whom around 700 were killed. Among the detainees was Edna Dautović, a student from Prijedor, who was then 22 or 23 years old. The judgment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Kvočka et al. case lists her name among the women detained in Omarska, some of whom were not found after the camp was closed. Sadeta Medunjanin was also held in Omarska.

Glances in the camp canteen

Anto Tomić, who, according to his own testimony published on the portal genocid.ba, was himself a detainee in Omarska, described how detainees ran to the camp canteen in groups of about thirty, had around four minutes for a meal of about a hundred grams of stale bread, and were beaten with truncheons on entering and leaving. According to his testimony, Edna was the youngest female detainee in the camp. They were not allowed to talk in the canteen, so they only exchanged glances, and he, as he states, tried to encourage her with his eyes. He described his disbelief when he saw her with the words: "No, no, not Edna. Not my Edna."

The killing of her brother Edvin

According to Radio Free Europe (RFE), Edna's brother Edvin Dautović (27) was killed on 16 July 1992 in the so-called "White House" in the Omarska camp.

Being taken away for an "exchange" and the Lisac pit

According to the statements of witnesses K035 and K027 before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Edna Dautović and Sadeta Medunjanin were taken out of the room by the camp commander Željko Mejakić.

At the end of July 1992, Edna disappeared from the camp. According to RFE, on 20 July 1992 she was driven by bus from Omarska in an unknown direction together with 42 other detainees. According to the findings of the Court of BiH, in the second half of July 1992, 44 Bosniak and Croat civilians, among them two women, were driven from Omarska by minibus, allegedly for an exchange. There was no exchange: in Donji Dubovik, in the municipality of Bosanska Krupa, the detainees were bound with wire and shot near the Lisac pit. According to the portal Detektor, Edna was taken from Omarska under the pretext of an exchange, killed and thrown into the Lisac pit.

The mother's search and the discovery of the remains

Her mother Mejra Dautović spent the war in Prijedor, from where she was expelled in 1995, after which she settled in Bihać. For years she searched for the fate of her children.

In 2000, the remains of 54 persons, two of them women, were exhumed from the Lisac pit; among them were the remains of Edna Dautović. The remains of Edvin Dautović were, according to RFE, found the same year in Kamičani. According to RFE, the brother and sister were buried on 7 October 2000 in Bihać.