(37) 6-7 March 93:Two bombs exploded during the weekend in Korcula in apparent attack against Serbian-owned property. One boutique, whose owner was a Serb from Novi Sad, was damaged. A second bomb exploded in the courtyard of a home owned by a Serb. (Department of State)
(38) 2 March 93:
Serbian forces, reportedly from regular Serbian army (VJ), overran Cerska and obstructed the medical evacuation of Town's Muslim women, children, elderly, and 1,500 wounded. Muslims fled into the woods and in the direction of Konjevic Polje. (Department of State, Paris AFP)
(39) 27 February 93:
British UNPROFOR units in Bosnia-Herzegovina had to help carry to safety some 1,500 Muslims and 15 Croats, mostly women and children, expelled by Serbian extremists from the village of Sipov. Those expelled had been taken by bus to Turbe near Travnik and then forced to walk through snow to the other side of battlefield. Serb reportedly fired at the fleeing group as it crossed the no-man's land. (Department of State)
(40) February 93:
Bosnian Serb authorities have required Bosnian Muslims to pay for their own deportation. A 30-year-old lawyer described his attempt "to secure permission to escape" from Bosnia:
"We've been trying to leave since summer, but it is difficult because we need money for all of the letters and guarantees. We want to go ... anywhere where our refugees are still accepted"
Bosnian Muslims are sometimes required to mark their homes with white flags, to wear white armbands for identification, and to obtain permission to walk on the streets. A local assistance worker said:
"We have restrictions on our movements. We cannot go anywhere from Banja Luka. Almost all Muslims in Banja Luka have been fired from their jobs. To walk around town we must carry special papers."
A 40-year-old Muslim woman described drunken vigilantes in Celinac, a village near Banja Luka: "Every night they break in our apartments. They take away the men and demand our money." (Los Angeles Times)
(41) May-September 92:
A 53-year-old Bosnian Muslim described the ethnic cleansing of his village Obrevena.
The witness said the Rudo district (opcina) originally had a 28% Muslim population and two mosques. In April 1991, the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) candidate, a Serbian language teacher, was elected president of Rudo. Ethnic relations were fine until the beginning of May of 1992, when the police chief fired Muslim policemen and the district government called up the local reserves, excluding Muslim reservists.
In May 1992, the witness saw Serbian soldier[s] burned the Muslim village of Polmilje, and, in July, he witnessed the burning of Muslim village of Bisevic. Also in July, the police started arresting Muslim men and interning them in a military warehouse in Rudo and at Gojava military installation. Some were transferred to KP Dom, a criminal rehabilitation center.
On August 2, 1992, local Serb soldiers came to Obrevena. The witness recognized many of the Serbs who were dressed in camouflage uniforms with Serbian flags and SDS insignias, wearing headbands and heavily armed. The soldiers collected nine Muslim men from the village and marched them 2 kilometers to a field by the Sokol Pasa mosque in Sokolovic. After the men waited there for 2 hours, the soldiers' leader told the men, "If you can run, then run," and released them.
The men fled toward Priboj, the closest town across the Serbian border. Then they forded the river and traveled by foot for two months through the woods until they arrived in Novi Pazar, the capital of the Muslim-controlled Sandzak area of Serbia. (Department of State)
(42) May-August 92:
A 46-year-old Bosnian Muslim from Mioce in the Rudo district (opcina) of eastern Bosnia described the ethnic cleansing of his home district. In January 1992, all Muslims have been asked to sign a loyalty oath to the "Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina" and to give up their arms; all complied. In May 1992, about 100 Serbian troops, led by a Serb from a neighboring village, surrounded Mioce and refused Muslim to enter or leave the village. These soldiers wear stockings over their heads and dark sunglasses, and stopped people on the streets to extort money from them. The soldiers also began looting homes, setting crops on fire, and shooting automatic weapons into the air day and night. The villagers slept in the woods. The soldiers' leader spent considerable time walking the streets of the village threatening Muslims and telling them [that] they would die soon. He frequently said he was carrying out "orders from Pale."
At the end of July, the Serbian troops began attacking the witness' village in the earnest. They burned Muslim homes, three of them with their occupants still inside. Some Muslims were taken to a camp in Rudo. On August 1, 1992, a Serbian national assembly member came to Mioce and said that there was no longer any "control" over the Rudo district and that everyone should evacuate as soon as possible. At about 5 pm, 50 Muslim families ran into the woods for Priboj, a Serbian town about 10 kilometers away. They later heard from a neighbor that all 60 Muslim homes in the village had been looted and burned. The villagers walked from Priboj to Prijepolje, on the Montenegrin border, where they were turned back by Serbian police. They eventually took a regular bus to Novi Pazar, the capital of the Muslim-controlled Sandzak region of Serbia. (Department of State)
(43) July 92:
A 27-year-old Bosnian Muslim witnessed the Bosnian Serb artillery bombardment of Biscani at about noon on July 20, 1992. Biscani was one of many Muslim villages in the Prijedor area and had a population of about 1,000 Muslims. Since May 1992, there had been Bosnian Serb soldiers and other officials in the town.
From May to July, their activity had been limited to provoking the population by insults, residential searches, and general harassment. The primary targets of the provocations appeared to be the wealthier and more prominent citizens in the town, including doctors, lawyers, and business owners.
Sometime between 2 and 3 pm on July 20, the artillery bombardment was lifted, and the town was assaulted by a force of Bosnian Serb infantry supported by one tank and one armored personnel carrier. Members of the attacking unit were Bosnian Serbs from the Prijedor area and from the areas in the vicinity, such as Sanski Most and Banja Luka. The witness recognized several of the attacking soldiers as residents of the Prijedor area. All wore camouflage uniforms, red berets, and had the Serbian flag on the sleeve of their uniforms. Small groups of soldiers quickly occupied virtually every house in the village. After they had secured each house, they shot and killed most of the male residents in or immediately outside their homes. The women and children were rounded up and placed in a small number of houses so that they would be easier to watch.
The witness observed the shooting through a window from inside one of the houses. He saw two soldiers killed Vehid Duratovic and Sadik Causevic as they attempted to run away. He also saw seven Bosnian Serb soldiers assemble five male residents of the village in front of a wall of a house across the street where one of the Bosnian Serb soldiers shoot and killed them. Four of the five victims were: Rifet Duratovic, Mirsad Kadiric, Ifet Karagic, and Ibrahim Kadiric. From July 20 to 27, the surviving local residents, mostly women and children, buried the victims' bodies in the local cemetery.
On July 27, about 35 women and children and about 15 men were rounded up Bosnian Serb soldiers. The witness beleived that this group constituted all the remaining survivors of the village. This group was forced to walk to an unknown location near the entrance to the city of Prijedor where Serb soldiers had set up the road block. At about 8 pm, a bus arrived and transported the entire group to the Trnopolje detention camp. (Department of State)
(44) July 92: A Bosnian Croat from Prijedor reported the existence of 23 mass grave sites in northwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina beleived to contain the remains of over 1,000 Muslim and Croatian victims of Serbian ethnic cleansing, especially during the period July 20-25, 1992.
He and other eyewitnesses had seen bodies being dumped in some of the locations and scores of unburied corpses lying among trees in other locations containing the 23 mass graves were plotted on a map and described as follows:
* First location: 23 villagers were killed at Brisevo and buried in eight graves.
* Second location: 19 villagers were killed in Raljas and buried in five graves.
* Third location : 43 people from Stara Rijeka were killed and buried in two graves.
* Fourth location: 200 people were killed and buried in one grave in the area known as Redak.
* Fifth location: Several hundreds corpses were buried in the open pit iron mine at Ljubija.
* Sixth location: 21 people were killed and buried in two graves in the region called Volaric.
* Seventh location: 120 people from the villages of Jugovic and Biscani were killed and buried in the village of Jubovci.
* Eight location: Several tens of people were killed and buried in the left bank of the Sana River near the village of Biscani-Sredice.
* Ninth location: Several hundred bodies reportedly still lie unburied in the Krusevo Forest. There were reportedly 80 bodies at the base of Mount Lisina. (Department of State)
(45) June-July 92:
A 55-year-old Bosnian Muslim from Brcko, who was a prisoner at Luka camp in early June 1992, described the disposal of corpses from Luka prison. (See section "Willful Killing.")
In the first week of June, the bodies of most of the 2,000 that he estimates were killed were thrown down a well and emerged later floating down the Sava River, surfacing at Resovo Polje and as far as Belgrade. As Luka guards became aware of the surfacing corpses, they took to cutting open the bodies and packing them with sand to keep them submerged. This effort did not always succeed. The third approach was to chop up the corpses and burn the bodies. The witness strongly urges the international community to secure access to the Luka harbor and send underwater divers down to identify the corpses that were dumped there in June and July, and to excavate sites where quantity of human bones can be find. (Department of State)
(46) March-July 92:
A Muslim woman in her mid-40s described the ethnic cleansing of Gacko, a town with population of 16,000.
The witness said [that] Serbian army first came through Gacko in 1992, on the way to front in Mostar. Serbs - calling themselves White Eagles - began destroying Muslim owned cafes, apartments, and shops. All these Serbs were local, with the exception of some who said they were refugees from Mostar. About May 15, the White Eagles began shooting into homes and making arrests. Around noon on June 1, soldiers arrested Muslim men as they finished their shift at the power plant where the witness worked. The soldiers put Muslims in military transport and took about 100 men to the military prison at Avtovac, 5 kilometers from Gacko. The Serbian soldiers then moved from house to house arresting more Muslim men and moving them first to Avtovac and then to Hotel Terma, outside the town.
On July 4, shortly after midnight, Serbs began going house to house for the remaining Muslims. A soldier came to the witness's home and said, "You have 2 minutes to leave." She said that about 980 were forced to leave at this time. They were taken by bus and train eventually to the Serbian-Macedonian border, where a Muslim relief organization brought them to Skopje.(Department of State)
(47) 26 June 92:
A 37-year-old Bosnian Muslim witnessed the arrival of local Serb paramilitary units reinforced with regular tank and infantry units from Serbia in Kozluk, Bosnia, on June 26, 1992.
The units from Serbia were from Valjevo, Sabac, Loznica, Novi Sad, and Titovo Uzice. Prior to capturing the town, the Serbs bombarded it with artillery from the Gocevo mountains across the border in Serbia. On June 26, the Serbs entered the town and brought with them buses and trucks. They ordered the entire population of Kozluk to assemble in the town center. About 1,500 people assembled.
The Serbs read from a list the names of prominent local people and told them to move to one side. They were ordered into a bus and taken away to an unknown location; they were never seen again. Next, the Serbs segregated all the men from the women and children and ordered men to board the buses. Finally, the women and children were ordered to board the buses. Before they departed, the town residents were told that, they were being taken to a refugee camp in Palic, near Subotica. (Department of State)
(48) 18 June 92:
A 62-year-old Bosnian Muslim described the ethnic cleansing of the cluster of villages known as Fazlagica Kula, in the Gacko area.
On June 18, at about 5 pm, Serbian forces from the Serb villages of Miholjace, Srdzevici, and Medulici advanced on the villages. "They came with tanks from every direction," said the witness. The villagers fled to the mountains and watched their villages being bombarded the entire day. On June 19, Serbian infantry entered the villages and looted homes and livestock.
The witness said between 200 and 300 residents of her village managed to escape to a nearby mountain, where they stayed for 27 days. She said [that] there were over 1,000 Muslim villagers from the area at various points on the mountain. The Serbs bombed their positions every day and surveilled their position by helicopter.
On July 25, the Serbs called by megaphone asking the Muslims to give up the women and children and promise protection for them. About 200-300 women and children carrying a white flag, descended the mountain. They were brought to Gacko where the police chief put them into four military convoys and transported the women and children through Bileca to Trebinje. Rejected at Trebinje, the group was dropped off at Bileca. After 15 days in Bileca, the witness fled to Montenegro. (Department of State)
(49) May 92:
A 34-tear-old Bosnian Muslim from Sokolovo saw local Serbs establish a control point on the bridge over the Sana River at the southeast end of Kljuc. The surrounding villages come under the mortat fire and the Muslims were ordered to turn over all weapons, legal or illegal, to the Kljuc district government. The Muslims were told that if the weapons were not turned over, the bombardment would continue. The bombardment included the following villages: Pudin Han, Velagici, Velecevo, Dubocani, Plamenice, Prhovo, Crljeni, Gornji Ramici, Donji Ramici, Krasulje, Balijevici, Hripavci, and Kamicak. The mortar attack continued through May 29. Between May 31 and June 1, the witness said that Serbian forces had killed 40 persons and that another 22 disappeared from the village of Prhovo. The murder victims lay where they had fallen 9 days before they were buried. two eyewitnesses to the murders were among those who gathered up the dead and buried them under the supervision of paramilitary forces sent by the Kljuc district.
Following these attacks, the local Serbs maintained the pressure on the remaining Muslim inhabitants through a campaign of random killing, looting, rapes, and destruction of houses.
In the late August, the Kljuc district government took a census of the area and announced over the radio that those who wanted to leave the area could do so, but only if they agree to relinquish all claims to their property. The government prepared property abandonment forms for that purpose and the Muslims were required to sign them. Kljuc district officials participated as witnesses and signatories to the documents. In addition, Muslims were required to obtain a certificate allowing them to leave the area and to pay 50 Deutsch marks each for their transportation.
On September 11, the Kljuc district government set up a convoy of about eight buses and 12 large trucks in front of the Kljuc school center. All the Muslims who had the proper documentation and who had paid 50 [Deutsch] marks were loaded aboard the vehicles at 10 am, and the convoy departed for Vlasic mountain and Travnik, arriving about 5 pm. (Department of State)
(50) 27 May 92:
A 32-year-old Bosnian Muslim said that on the morning of May 27, 1992, the roads across the Sana River, from his neighborhood to the center of Sanski Most, were blocked by local Serbian police and soldiers whom he beleived were from the JNA. During the day he saw the police and soldiers bringing mortars and artillery into position on the other side of river.
The shelling began at 9 pm and lasted until 8 [am] the next morning. The witness estimates that Serbs used more than 3,000 shells and mortars. In the morning, the radio announced that all those in neighborhood who wanted to surrender should raise a white flag. Another broadcast said that all weapons should be turned in to a central police station.
Later the radio announced that all "innocent citizens" should report to the main soccer field to "settle accounts" for the activities of the Green Berets - a Muslim force allegedly fighting the Serbs. The witness that nearly everyone from the neighborhood - a couple of thousand people - went to the sports field. Only those who had not heard the radio broadcast or who were too scared or distrustful of the Serbs to go stayed in their home.
Once they were in the sports field, the Serbs began to "cleanse" neighborhood. From the field, the witness watched the Serbian police and irregulars roamed through streets, looting and burning houses. If they found people still in their homes, the Serbs threw a grenade through the window to kill the occupants. Sometime in June, while being transported between detention facilities on the road between Kljuc and Sanski Most, the witness saw from the bus window a pile of 40 to 50 bodies stacked in a meadow about 5 meters from the road. At the foot of a hill, he saw a bulldozer digging what the witness presumed would be a mass grave. The witness gave a detailed description of the location of the site. (Department of State)
(51) 27 May 92:
A 43-year old Bosnian Muslim was in Velagici located approximately 5 kilometers northwest of Kljuc, when Bosnian Serb forces started systematic destruction of village. Velagici had a population of about 8,000 people whose ethnic composition was 75% Muslim, 24% Serbian, and 1% Croatian. Velagici was perhaps the wealthiest district of Kljuc because many of the men worked in Germany during the summer and earned hard currency. Because of this many men were not in the village when the shelling began, leaving thousands of women and children virtually defenseless.
As soon as shelling began on May 27, 1992, local Serbian radio broadcast demanded that the citizens of Velagici surrendered all arms and property unconditionally to the Serbian forces. Most of the women and children managed to escape on the foot that evening to the nearby village of Postarje, where they hid in the homes of local residents. As a result, mass casualties were avoided in Velagici, though a total of 13 men and women were killed during this attack.
On May 28 at 6 pm, Serbian soldiers completely surrounded Velagici and forced 70 men, a group that included the witness, to turn over all weapons and surrender. All Muslim homes were subsequently robbed and burned. Velagici was renamed Ravna Gora by local Serbian authorities in June 1992. (Department of State)
(52) April-May 92:
A middle-aged Muslim couple from the village of Rodic Brdo, 1 kilometer from Visegrad, witnessed the movement of the Uzicki corps - troops from Uzice - into the Visegrad vicinity on April 13, 1992. This corps consisted of JNA soldiers, reservists, Uzice territorial defense forces, and White Eagles. The Jna soldiers wore their regular JNA uniforms. They brought significant amount of heavy equipment with JNA markings (tanks, heavy trucks, and mortars) into town. Planes and helicopters with JNA markings frequently flew overhead. The White Eagles overtly identified themselves as such and wore outfits that combined elements of military and civilian garb, including headbands. Some wore hats with the kokarda emblem, a royalist insignia. The two witnesses noted a significant differences between White Eagles and JNA treated Muslim civilians, the latter appearing far more attentive to the need not to harm civilians. They also discerned tensions between the White Eagles and the JNA. Upon learning that the Uzicki corps was 2 kilometers away, most of the town's Muslims fled to the woods. As they were fleeing, Uzicki corps soldiers fired upon them. The corps broadcast calls over the radio for Muslim residents to return to Visegrad, assuring them of safe return. The witnesses returned to town on April 20 and found it filled with rubble and burned out homes. By this date, the JNA had blocked all the roads of Visegrad (to Uzice, Sarajevo, Foca, and Rudo), White Eagles stood behind the JNA troops, and the Uzicki corps had set up roadblocks all around the area.
At each roadblock, a soldier carried a list of Muslim names. Everyone was required to show identification; those Muslims whose names appeared on the list were taken away and not heard from again. They included factory directors, political and community leaders, and other respected citizens. Between May 18 and 25, the Uzicki corps left Visegrad, taking its heavy equipment with it, and pulled back to a location between Visegrad and the Serbian border. The town fell under control of the White Eagles on May 25. (Department of State)
(53) October 91:
A 44-year-old Bosnian Muslim was working in Trebinje when the Serbs started the siege of Dubrovnik on October 10, 1991. The witness described how the mayor of Trebinje was very much involved with and in favor of the offensive, welcomed the arrival of the JNA troops, and was an accomplice of the destruction of Dubrovnik. The witness said that Trebinje was the headquarters for the offensive against Dubrovnik. There was a communications center, helicopter pad, hospital and two or three JNA military installations. From October 1991, Muslims could not leave Trebinje because of the JNA presence. At the end of October, the JNA attacked the Croat enclave of Ravno and burned to the ground. Following UN protests against the shelling of Dubrovnik, the JNA withdrew and the Serbian Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina took over, in collusion with the Trebinje mayor's police force. Soldiers began looting Muslim homes, extorting money, and requiring Muslims to give up their weapons. By April, most Muslims had fled. (Department of State)