Only She Survived: The Testimony of a Young Mother from Presjeka near Nevesinje, 1992

A Visit That Turned into Flight

In June 1992, a young mother came with her husband and their two small children, a son and a daughter, to visit her mother-in-law in the village of Presjeka near Nevesinje. According to her testimony, recorded by Večernji list journalist Robert Bubalo, Nevesinje was by then already under the control of Serb forces. On 22 June 1992, shelling began.

The family joined a large column of civilians who were trying to reach Velež and Mostar across the mountains. According to the testimony, the group numbered about 350 people, and the flight lasted about four days. After a shell fell, the group split up; about 70 people stayed together.

Capture and Separation

According to the testimony, soldiers captured the group and took it to Dnopolje, where the men were separated from the women and children. The survivor states that commander Zdravko Kandić came to Dnopolje and ordered that the men be taken away in a vehicle.

The sources differ on the exact time of the capture. According to the survivor's testimony, the group was captured after about four days of flight that began on 22 June 1992. According to the indictment of the ICTY Prosecution in the case against Vojislav Šešelj, more than 70 civilians captured while fleeing from Nevesinje were killed as early as 22 June 1992.

The ICTY established that at the end of June 1992, Serb soldiers in Dubravica killed at least 27 Bosniak men from Presjeka and Kljuna.

The Heating Plant

According to the testimony, the women and children were locked in the town heating plant in Nevesinje, where they were held for four days and nights. The facts established by the ICTY in the Krajišnik case concern the detention of Bosniak women and children in the basement of the heating plant in Kilavci: they were without food and water, and mothers had to give their children urine to drink so that they would not become dehydrated. According to the findings in the Šešelj case, from 26 to 30 June 1992, members of the "Red Berets" tortured and brutally abused the women and children detained in that heating plant.

The ICTY also established that in June 1992, Serb soldiers killed most of the women and children detained in the heating plant in Kilavci. At the end of June, at least seven children and several Bosniak women were killed, and their bodies were buried in a pit in Lipovača.

Boračko jezero

According to her testimony, the survivor was afterwards held at other locations in the Konjic area, including near Boračko jezero. The former police recreation center near Boračko jezero, in Borci in Konjic municipality, served as a place of detention for Bosniaks from eastern Herzegovina; detainees were brought there from the Public Security Station Nevesinje, where they were mistreated and beaten. The indictment in the Šešelj case before the ICTY alleged sexual violence against women detained near Boračko jezero.

The survivor testifies that she was subjected to sexual violence and that, according to her, the same happened to most of the women who were taken away with her.

Release and the Lie about Her Family

According to the testimony, a man took her and two other young women out and drove them to Nevesinje. There, as she states, Krsto Savić, chief of the Public Security Center Trebinje, told her that her husband and children were alive and had been exchanged. This was not true. According to her testimony, her husband, son and daughter were killed in 1992.

In her testimony, the survivor also names other persons whom she holds responsible. According to her, Petar Divjaković was particularly brutal, and Novica Gušić stood at the head of the military structures in Nevesinje and should have ordered the killing of the women and children.

The Scale of the Crimes in Nevesinje

According to Večernji list, about 360 Bosniak and Croat civilians were killed in the crimes in Nevesinje. According to Radio Free Europe, in June 1992, 301 Bosniaks and 12 Croats were killed in Nevesinje municipality, among them 26 children, and in 2011, 104 persons were still listed as missing.

Before the Court

Krsto Savić, chief of the Public Security Center Trebinje, was sentenced by the Court of BiH to 17 years in prison for crimes in eastern Herzegovina. The first verdict from 2009, which sentenced him to 20 years, was overturned and the trial was repeated.

On 16 December 2021, the SIPA agency arrested Zdravko Kandić, former commander of the 5th Battalion of the Nevesinje Brigade of the Vojska Republike Srpske, and seven other persons on suspicion of crimes against Bosniaks in Zijemlje in 1992. On 9 February 2022, the Court of BiH confirmed the indictment against nine persons, including Kandić, for a crime against humanity. According to the indictment, about 100 Bosniaks were killed, among them dozens of women, elderly persons and children aged from 15 days to two years.