The Living Pyre at Bikavac: Ensar and Elma Tufekčić

Thirteen days after Pionirska Street

On 14 June 1992 in Višegrad, Bosniak civilians were burned alive in Pionirska Street. At least 59 people died. Only thirteen days later, a similar crime was repeated, this time in the settlement of Bikavac.

27 June 1992: the house of Meho Aljić

On 27 June 1992, armed members of the group of Milan Lukić gathered about 70 Bosniak civilians, most of them women and children, and forced them into the house of Meho Aljić at Bikavac. According to one source, the people were lured into the house with the promise of an exchange. The attackers then blocked all the exits, fired shots at the house and threw explosive devices into it, and then set it on fire with petrol. The people locked inside burned alive.

According to the judgement of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), at least 60 civilians were killed in the fire. According to Bosnian institutions, 72 people were burned. According to data from IZIZ, there were 16 children among the victims, four of whom were not yet two years old. The oldest victim was Tija Šabanović, who was 88 years old. Twenty-three of the victims came from the village of Velika Gostilja. Mina Vilić from Prelovo was burned together with her three minor children.

The Tufekčić family

The youngest known victim of Bikavac was Ensar Tufekčić, Esad's son, then still a small child. According to some sources he was one year old, while his father speaks of a two-year-old son. Burned together with him were his five-year-old sister Elma, their mother and their grandmother.

In a single day Esad Tufekčić lost his wife, his daughter, his son and his mother-in-law. Almost three decades later he had still not found their remains. "Even after 30 years we have not found a single bone," said Esad Tufekčić. He says his only wish is to find them.

The only survivor

Only one person came out of the burning house, Zehra Turjačanin. She squeezed through a small window and escaped, severely burned. She later testified about the crime before the ICTY.

Mortal remains

By 2023, 45 victims had been identified. The mortal remains of most of the people burned at Bikavac have still not been found.

Verdicts

On 20 July 2009, the ICTY Trial Chamber found Milan Lukić guilty of the murder and extermination of at least 60 civilians at Bikavac and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The ICTY Appeals Chamber upheld that sentence on 4 December 2012. The Tribunal described the burnings in Pionirska Street and at Bikavac as some of the worst examples of inhumanity of man to man.

Sredoje Lukić was also charged in connection with Bikavac, but was acquitted on that count. Oliver Krsmanović was indicted before the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, among other things for Bikavac, but was not convicted of that offence.

Remembrance

In 2023, the association "Žena žrtva rata" and Ermin Kuka published the monograph "Živa lomača – Bikavac u Višegradu (27. juni 1992)".