Hasan Tufekčić: a family from Višegrad destroyed in two wars

A cabinetmaker and partisan from Višegrad

Hasan Tufekčić, a Bosniak, was born in 1905 in Višegrad. By trade he was a cabinetmaker and worked at the furniture factory "Varda". In the Second World War he fought with the partisans.

Family accounts of 1942

According to the portal genocid.ba and the newspaper Oslobođenje, based on the family's account, in 1942, while Hasan was with the partisans, četnici killed his first wife Hanka and all ten of their children in a single day on the Mehmed-paša Sokolović bridge in Višegrad: Omer, Fehim, Ferid, Ramiz, Redžep, Fatima, Hajra, Hanka, Paša and Sabaheta. According to the same texts, the eldest son, Omer, was twenty years old.

A new family

After the war Hasan married Haša, born in 1917 in Višegrad. They had nine children, and Hasan gave them the names of the children he had lost. Their son Ferid died as a six-month-old baby. The portal genocid.ba stresses that Hasan never sought revenge and writes of him: "He did not answer evil with evil."

Hasan Tufekčić died in 1984 and did not live to see the war that once again struck his family.

Višegrad in 1992

Haša Tufekčić, Hasan's widow, was killed in 1992 in Višegrad. According to Oslobođenje and genocid.ba, that same year her son Ramiz and her daughters Hajra and Sabaheta were also killed in Višegrad, and Oslobođenje states that their bodies were thrown into the Drina. The exact dates and places of death of Haša, Ramiz and Sabaheta are not known, nor are the perpetrators of those killings.

Hajra Korić

According to Oslobođenje, Hajra Korić, née Tufekčić, the daughter of Hasan and Haša, was killed in Višegrad by Milan Lukić. Her body was thrown into the Drina and was found near Slap, that is, Bajina Bašta. She was first buried as an unknown person, and was later exhumed, identified by DNA analysis and buried in Sarajevo.

Sabaheta Subašić and Irma

According to Oslobođenje and genocid.ba, Sabaheta Subašić, née Tufekčić, lived in Bikavac and in 1992 disappeared together with her newborn daughter. The family at first believed that she had died in the burning of people in a house in Bikavac; according to the family's later findings, she was taken to the bridge and killed together with the child. The circumstances of her death are not entirely clear even to the family. The remains of Sabaheta and the child have not been found. The girl, who did not live long enough to be given a name, was later named Irma so that she could be declared missing.

According to these texts, in less than fifty years Hasan Tufekčić was left without thirteen children – ten in 1942 and three in 1992.

The verdict against Milan Lukić

On 20 July 2009, the Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found Milan Lukić guilty, among other things, of the murder of Hajra Korić and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The ICTY Appeals Chamber upheld the life sentence on 4 December 2012.