Personal testimony · Foča · July 1992 – August 1992
Testimony of a Mother from a Village near Foča: From Buk Bijela to the Partizan Hall, Summer 1992
In written statement no. 10824/96, an anonymous Bosniak woman from a village about ten kilometres from Foča describes the attack by Serb forces in July 1992 and her detention at Buk Bijela, the Secondary School Centre in Aladža and the Partizan sports hall. Her testimony corresponds to the findings of the Hague Tribunal on the detention of Bosniak women, children and elderly persons in Foča in the summer of 1992. The Hague Tribunal issued a final conviction of Dragoljub Kunarac for crimes in Foča, sentencing him to 28 years in prison.
The Attack on the Village
Statement no. 10824/96 was given by a Bosniak woman, a mother, from a village about ten kilometres from Foča, in eastern Bosnia. The statement does not give the name of the village or the exact date of the attack. According to her testimony, Serb forces attacked the village one July morning in 1992, at around five o'clock. The attackers, she states, arrived in five buses.
According to the testimony, the attackers separated the men from the women and children, and nine civilian men were killed at close range. The witness states that the order was given by a "vojvoda" from Miljevina. One man, as she recalls, begged them to spare the women and children: "Don't touch the women and children, they are not guilty." According to the testimony, three more villagers were killed as they fled. The witness's husband and son remained in the forest.
Buk Bijela and Aladža
The women and children were taken to barracks at the Buk Bijela hydroelectric power plant construction site. There the women were separated from the children and interrogated, and some were subjected to sexual violence. From there the women were transferred to the Secondary School Centre in Aladža in Foča.
The findings of the Hague Tribunal describe the same route of detention. According to those findings, on 3 July 1992 Serb soldiers arrested at least 60 Bosniak women, children and several elderly men in the villages of Trošanj and Mješaja in the municipality of Foča and drove them to Buk Bijela. At least 72 Bosniak civilians were then held in two classrooms of the Secondary School Centre in Aladža.
The Partizan Sports Hall
On 13 July 1992 the detainees were moved to the Partizan sports hall in Foča. The witness spent a little over a month there. According to her, there were about 85 women, children and elderly people in the hall. The Hague Tribunal states that at least 72 persons were detained.
According to the Tribunal's findings, the detainees in the Partizan hall suffered hunger and physical, psychological and sexual violence. The witness describes how soldiers took women and girls out of the hall. She states that she herself was subjected to sexual violence and that among the soldiers who took her away was Dragoljub Kunarac.
Deportation and Novi Pazar
According to the findings of the Hague Tribunal, most of the detainees from the Partizan hall were released on 13 August 1992 and deported to Montenegro. According to the testimony, nine women reached Novi Pazar in Serbia, where they received medical care. Six of them were, as the witness states, pregnant.
The Judgment
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia issued a final conviction of Dragoljub Kunarac, sentencing him to 28 years in prison for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war in Foča. The trial judgment was delivered on 22 February 2001, and the appeal proceedings concluded on 12 June 2002.