Do not forget

Series 13

This series is based on scientifically verified knowledge and the essential results of scientific research, of the many eminent researcher institutions of genocide and other crimes against humanity and international law in Europe and the world.

Genocide in Zvornik

Territory of the Zvornik municipality is situated in northeastern Bosnia and it extends along the left bank of the Drina river, some 52 km long. According to 1991 census, Zvornik had 81,295 residents, of which 48,102 (59.16%) Muslims (Bosniacs); 30,863 (37.96%) Serbs; 1,248 (1.53%) Yugoslavs; 122 (0.15%) Croats, and 960 (1.2%) Others. Zvornik has a good geostrategic position, as it represents the junction of roads taking to Sarajevo, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Bijeljina, and Tuzla. Moreover, this was also a micro-region of industry, economy, and culture such a position makes this municipality a subject of interest for numerous conquerors, who changed here throughout the history. The latest aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was an exception.

Soon after the multiparty elections, SDS provided its municipally boards with the instructions relative to efficient takeover of authority in municipally parliaments. As of its establishment, SDS considered itself a legitimate representative of the overall Serb population in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and stated its destructive engagement through the formation Serb Autonomous Provinces in BiH. although Bosniac population was predominant in Zvornik, it did not prevent the followers of the Serb genocidal ideology and practice relative to Great Serbia to try to join this municipality to the structure of the Serb Autonomous Provinces (Birač, Semberija, and Majevica). On 27 December 1991, SDS declared Serb municipality Zvornik.

Around the mid 1991, JNA units started with their engagement in the area of Zvornik and the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, after they pulled out their units from Slovenia and Croatia. These units assumed the strategic positions around Zvornik. The attack against Zvornik started on 9 April 1992, and JNA carried out this attack. This was well-planned and prepared operation within joint criminal enterprise, whose objective was permanent removal of Bosniacs. In addition to JAN units, SDS units and Arkan units Tigrovi, Beli orlovi and other Serb forces took part in the attack.

Numerous crimes against humanity and international law were committed in this area, such as murders, intentional killing, persecution, extermination rapes, unlawful detention, incarceration, torture, intentional infliction of great suffering, deportation (forcible transfer), wanton destruction, plundering of public and private property …

During the attack on 9 and 10 April 1992, they killed 15 people. On 28 and 29 April 1992, in the attack against Rašidov Han, they killed 36 people. On 12 – 14 May 1992, at the Karakaj farm, they killed six detainees. On 30 May 1992, around 55 people wee killed in the school in Drinjača. On 5 – 8 June 1992, in Gera’s slaughterhouse, they killed around 190 people.

On 10 May, 13 Bosniac civilians were killed in the villages of Motovo and Potočani; on 21 May, 69 civilians from the village of Donji Grbavci were killed; on 25 April, around 450 women, children, and the elderly were arrested and detained in the village of Liplje. On 26 May, around 175 men were captured in the settlement of Divič, and they were detained in the administrative building of the company Novi izvor where at least two male captives were killed, while 12 were separated from the group, and they have ever since been unaccounted for. On 29 May, 162 men were transported from there to the camp in Cultural center in Čelopek, where they brutally killed at least 100 prisoners. Other villages followed the example of Divič. On 27 May, they took away and killed 49 people; on 30 May, they took 111 people from the villages of Drinjača, Kostjerevo, and Sopotnik and killed them. More than 800 Bosniac civilians were killed in Zvornik during the first two months of the aggression, while hundreds were detained in camps or expelled.

Crimes continued during the following months. Thus, on 1 June, the worst crime was committed in the Zvornik municipality. Namely, around 700 people from the villages of Klis, Kaldrani, Sjenokos, Djine, Mahmutovići, Mrakodol, Kučić kula, Celismani, Lupići, Radava, Trcic, Đulići, Hajdarevići, Durakovići, and Dardagani were arrested and taken to the Secondary technical school in Karakaj, while remaining population, around 4,000 of them, were deported to Kalesija. All 700 captives in the Secondary technical school in Karakaj were killed.

Killing continued in other villages. On 12 June, in the village of Križevići, 29 old and exhausted people who could not escape the Serb hordes of evil were killed, after these villages became defenseless. The oldest victim in this incident was Hata Nezirović, born in 1886, who was 106 years old at that time. During the forcible transfer of population from Kozluk and Skočić, which took place on 26 June, 24 people were captured and killed. Additional 13 people were killed in the village of Gušteri, around the late June. Thus, in June 1992, in Zvornik, more than 750 Bosniacs were killed. Genocide in Zvornik municipality was completed in July 1992. by that moment, Bosniacs tried to offer resistance in some of the Zvornik villages or criminals did not have any interest to take over these villages. Yet, it was not their turn. First, on 5 July, SDS organized persecution of 800 residents of Šepak village, who were expelled across Drina river to Federal Republic Yugoslavia (town of Loznica in Serbia) and on that occasion, four people were killed. In July 1995, over 400 Bosniacs were killed in an around UN safe area Srebrenica.

In the period between 20 May and 2 June 1992, numerous rapes of women were committed in the camp Liplje. Women were imprisoned and exposed to multiple rapes, and some of them were juvenile. Even some men were raped.

Numerous Bosniacs were detained in the following places: Factory Alhos, on 9 April 1992 or around that date; Cultural center in Drinjača, between May and June 1992; Factory Standard, between April and June 1992; Cultural center in Čelopek, between May and June 1992; Technical school in Karakaj, between May and June 1992; Enterprise Novi izvor, between 29 May and 30 July 1992; Farm, between April and December 1992.

Around 15,436 civilians were expelled or deported from Zvornik to Hungary and Austria.

The objective of this joint criminal enterprise was achieved by the persecution campaign, which reached such an extent that it involved behavior, which depicted intention to destroy, in part or as a whole, Bosniacs, national, ethnic, and religious group as such. It was necessary to destroy the traces of cultural and religious existence of Bosniacs by the destruction cultural monuments and sacral buildings. In Zvornik, 28 mosques were destroyed, including those in Đulići, Kula Grad, Kozluk, Divič, Snagovo, Novo Selo, Skočići, Svrake, Drinjača, Glumina, Donja Kamenica, Gornja Kamenica, Klisa, Kovačevići, Rijeka, Selimovići…

Expert team for missing people of the Cantonal Prosecutor’s Office in Tuzla, in May 2008, exhumed 30 bodies from the primary mass grave in Ulica near the Zvornik settlement of Karakaj. Of the total number of mortal remains, 23 bodies were complete, and 7 were incomplete. Those were the mortal remains of Bosniacs, genocide victims, killed in April 1992 in Zvornik. In the period between July and October 2003, mass graves were exhumed in the area of Crni vrh near Zvornik, and 628 mortal remains were exhumed from there. Mortal remains of children, women, and elderly men were found there. In addition to Crni Vrh, other mass graves were also located in the Zvornik municipality: Ramin grob with 274 bodies, Berbića groblje with 69 bodies, Kazabašča with 132 bodies etc. So far, 1,200 bodies have been exhumed, of which 500 have been identified and buried at the cemeteries in Memići, Kalesija. Some were even buried individually in the victims’ places of origin. There are 1,533 civilian victims from this region, who are still registered as forcibly missing.

Sources of scientific knowledge:
1.Institute for Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law, University of Sarajevo
2.Institute for Research of Genocide, Canada
3.The International Criminal Tribunal for areas of the former Yugoslavia
4. The International Court of Justice