Today is a very sad day in my home town, Prijedor. We are putting to rest 284 bodies of innocents who were found in the largest mass grave in Bosnia. (Google Tomasica).
Although we are happy to finally be able to put to rest our family members who were lost to us for the past 21 long years, the pain is just as strong as it was back in 1992 when they were taken out of their homes and shot to death in cold blood by the Serb Army because they were not Serbs.
Today, I am with my mom and dad, my aunt Nefira, her son, Adnan who lost his dad, uncle, granddad and many cousins, I am with my uncle Ahmet and his son Velid, I am with my uncle Nuno and his dad, with my cousin Lejla, with my friend Ajla and her dad, I am with my friends Samir and Admir, with Pasa and Izeta…I am with the 284 innocent souls. May they all rest in peace. They will never be forgotten and their killers will never be forgiven.
On May 31st 1992, the Bosnian Serb authorities in Prijedor (My birth town) in north western Bosnia and Herzegovina, issued a decree for all non-Serbs to mark their houses with white flags or sheets and to wear a white armband if they were to leave their houses. This was the first day of a campaign of extermination that resulted in executions, concentration camps, mass rapes and the ultimate removal of more than 94% of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats from the territory of the Prijedor municipality.
Haunting from the Past by Sanela Ramic Jurich
