Account of an event · Zaklopača · May 16, 1992
Zaklopača, 16 May 1992: The Day Entire Bosniak Families Were Killed
On 16 May 1992, Serb forces from Milići killed dozens of Bosniak civilians, including children, in the village of Zaklopača, on the road between Vlasenica and Milići. According to local sources 59 people were killed, and according to the indictment before the Court of BiH at least 57. The bodies were hidden in a secret grave, discovered only in 2004, and to this day no one has been finally convicted of the crime.
A Village on the Vlasenica–Milići Road
Zaklopača is a small village in eastern Bosnia, located along the road that connects Vlasenica and Milići. Today it belongs to the municipality of Milići, and before the war it was part of the municipality of Vlasenica.
16 May 1992
On 16 May 1992, Serb forces from Milići came to Zaklopača. By the end of the day, dozens of Bosniak civilians in the village had been killed: men, women and children. According to local sources, the portal genocid.ba and the television channel N1, 59 people were killed, while the indictment before the Court of BiH speaks of at least 57 murdered civilians. The sources also do not give the same number of murdered children: according to genocid.ba there were ten children under the age of 15, and according to the indictment before the Court of BiH, eleven children.
The youngest victim was four-year-old Naida Hodžić. The oldest victim was Fatima Berbić; the sources give her age as 62 and 67 respectively. Among those killed was Muradif Hreljić, whose name is mentioned in the proceedings before the Court of BiH.
The Murdered Families
The portal genocid.ba describes how entire families perished that day. According to this source, Ibro Hodžić was killed together with five sons and a grandchild, and Hamed Hamidović with three daughters; his wife Fata Hamidović later died as a result of her wounds. The same source states that Ibro Hamidović lost three sons, that four-year-old Asim Hodžić was also killed, and that the families of the brothers Fadil and Behadil Hodžić and the family of Osman Salihović were killed. According to genocid.ba, the village lost about 40 percent of its inhabitants, and the survivors were expelled.
Concealment of the Crime
The bodies of the murdered were first buried in Zaklopača itself, and then moved about two kilometres away, to a grave covered with heavy stone blocks. According to survivors' testimonies cited by genocid.ba, the grave was moved several times, and at one point it was even marked with crosses, as if it were a Serb cemetery.
Discovery of the Grave and Burial
The mass grave was discovered at the beginning of May 2004, and the exhumation was completed on 21 May 2004. The remains of at least 62 people were found, among them children; bullet marks were visible on some of the skeletons.
After identification through DNA analysis, 55 victims from Zaklopača were buried in June 2008.
Court Proceedings Without a Guilty Verdict
On 1 November 2016, the Court of BiH confirmed an indictment against five men from Vlasenica and Milići, among them the commander of the police station in Milići. In the first-instance verdict of 25 March 2022, the court acquitted all the accused, explaining that the witnesses had not been consistent in identifying the perpetrators. The Appellate Panel of the Court of BiH upheld the acquittal in December 2022.