Anto Tomić, a Bosnian Croat from Ljubija, passed through the Keraterm, Omarska and Trnopolje camps in the Prijedor area in the summer of 1992. In Trnopolje he heard two contradictory versions of the death of Milan Ćurguz "Krivi", a man who brought food and messages to the detainees from Ljubija, and he later repeated both before the Hague Tribunal.
Fikret Hodžić, a bodybuilder who was champion of Yugoslavia fifteen years in a row and the founder of the first bodybuilding club in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was killed on 9 July 1992 in Trnopolje. On that day Serb soldiers took away his family, and according to the testimony of his wife Suada, the shot was fired by a young man who had previously trained with Fikret. His remains were found in a mass grave in 2009, and he was buried seventeen years after his death.
Ante Tomić, a Bosnian Croat and miner from Ljubija, was detained in 1992 in the Keraterm, Omarska and Trnopolje camps. According to his testimony, one night in July in Omarska he was beaten by a group of eight guards while trying to fill a bucket with water. He survived and in 2001 testified before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Personal testimony · Omarska · June 1992 – August 1992
Ante Tomić from Ljubija, a former worker at the Omarska mine, was arrested in early June 1992 and went through the Keraterm, Omarska and Trnopolje camps. According to his testimony, on his last night in Omarska he was beaten by the younger brother of the commander Miroslav Kvočka and by other guards, and in the camp he watched his fellow detainees die. After the war he lives in Hamburg, writes about the camp and gives testimony.
Account of an event · Briševo · May 1992 – November 1992
In July 1992, forces of the Vojska Republike Srpske attacked Briševo, a village with a predominantly Croat population in the Prijedor municipality, and killed more than sixty civilians; sources give between 61 and 68 killed. Houses and the Catholic church were destroyed, many men were taken to camps, and the survivors were expelled. Only in 2023 did the Prosecutor's Office of BiH indict five former commanders and representatives of the Serb forces.
Personal testimony · Omarska · May 24, 1992 – August 26, 1992
Mehmed Alić, a 69-year-old farmer from Kamičani near Kozarac, survived the Trnopolje, Omarska and Manjača camps in 1992. In Omarska, guards forced him to find and bring his son Enver, whom they then beat in the hangar; he never saw him alive again. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted Duško Tadić by a final judgment for taking part in the beating of detainees in the hangar, including Enver Alić.
Account of an event · Omarska · May 1992 – August 1992
In 1992, among more than 3,334 detainees in the Omarska camp, there were about thirty-six women, many of whom were well-known figures in the local public life of Prijedor. Five of them did not survive the camp. Two survivors, a former judge and a lawyer from Prijedor, after escaping to Croatia collected testimonies of hundreds of women raped during the war for investigators of the Hague Tribunal.
Personal testimony · Omarska · April 30, 1992 – August 6, 1992
Ante Tomić, a Bosnian Croat and miner from Ljubija, was arrested on the night of 13–14 June 1992 and spent almost three weeks in the Keraterm camp, followed by more than a month in Omarska, where he was beaten into a four-day unconsciousness and thrown onto a pile of dead bodies. He survived and in 2001 testified before the Hague Tribunal in the proceedings against the Keraterm commanders.
Personal testimony · Trnopolje · April 29, 1992 – September 30, 1992
In 1992, the Bosniak doctor Idriz Merdžanić from Prijedor treated wounded civilians during the attack by Serb forces on Kozarac, and then detainees of the Trnopolje camp, where he and the staff of the clinic secretly documented the injuries of detainees. He left the camp among the last, on 30 September 1992. Ten years later he testified before the ICTY in the case against Milomir Stakić, who was finally sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Personal testimony · Omarska · April 1992 – August 1992
Nusreta Sivac, a judge of the Municipal Court in Prijedor, was removed from her job in the spring of 1992 and on 9 June 1992 was taken to the Omarska camp, where she was one of 37 women detained. After surviving, she gathered testimonies together with her former colleague Jadranka Cigelj and in 1995 helped prepare the first ICTY indictments in The Hague. She testified several times before the Tribunal, including in the trial of Radovan Karadžić.
In 1992, around 30,000 non-Serb men, women and children passed through the Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje camps near Prijedor, and among the 102 children killed from Prijedor was a two-month-old infant. More than three decades later, families are still waiting to learn where their loved ones lie. This story follows the fates of those who were killed, of survivors, and of those who died without seeing their sons buried.