Do you remember Prozor? – Never forget genocide in Prozor

As long as they deny the genocide we will beat them with the scientific and judicial truth

This series, author professor Emir Ramic, Director of the Institute for Research of Genocide, Canada 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.

The Prozor municipality is situated at the mouth of river Rama to Neretva, in the northern Herzegovina, at the very important road towards Central Bosnia. According tot 1991 census, Prozor municipality had 19,760 residents living in 56 settlements. Of this number, Muslims (Bosniacs) were 7,225 (36.56%); Croats 12,259 (62.03%); Serbs 45 (0.22); Yugoslavs 100 (0.50%), and Others 131 (0.66%).

On 23 October 1992, Croatian Army (HV) and Croat Defense Council (HVO) massively used artillery, armored and mechanized vehicles, and infantry to attack the town of Prozor. On that occasion, these military units bombarded heavily the town center, which resulted in a huge material damage on the residential and economic facilities in the part of town predominantly populated by Bosniacs. while entering the town, these forces, killed and injured, severely or slightly, several persons.

Having entered Prozor, HV and HVO deported all the Bosniac population, which did not manage to escape towards Jablanica or neighboring forests, to already prepared places of incarceration, and able-bodied men to the camps in the territory of the pseudo state (of the Republic of Croatia) creation of the Croatian Community Herzeg-Bosnia (in the warehouse of the Territorial Defense in Prozor, “UNIS” factory, and schools in the villages of Ripci, Jaklići, Šćit, etc. During the occupation of Prozor and immediately after that, these military forces burnt 71 Bosniac house, 39 catering facilities and 11 other economic buildings owned by Bosniacs, and forfeited 110 vehicles of various models and purposes.

The Croatia forces committed in the territory of the Prozor municipality numerous massive and individual slaughters of Bosniac civilian population, especially in the settlements of: Blace, Klek, Parcani, Paroš, Tolovac, Duge, Škrobućani, Tošćanica, Orašac, Lapsunj, Heljdovi, Here, Šćipe, Krančići, Donja Vast, and other.

During 1993, HVO expelled almost all Bosniacs from the occupied territory. Able-bodied Bosniacs (around 1,000) were deported to camps in Prozor or west Herzegovina.

On 28 August 1993, HVO arrested the remaining civilian population, forced them on trucks and expelled them via the village of Kućani. At that time, in a classic ghetto, HVO left in a part of Prozor known as Pograđe, only 128 Bosniac civilians to struggle for life, and they were mainly the family members of entrepreneurs needed to maintain the HVO equipment.

During the incarceration in the HVO camps, the camp inmates in the Firefighting brigade center in Prozor and the Secondary school were particularly tortured. They were beaten up there and tortured to death. There are many statements about the execution of Bosniac civilians in the area of Duška Kosa (currently garbage depot). Dozens of women and girls were raped, and even sexual abuse of men was noted, even the cases of forced sexual intercourse with sows.

On 31 July 1993, members of the military police of the HVO brigade “Rama” took more than 50 camp inmates from the cam in the Secondary school in Prozor, and used them as living shield at Crni Vrh (Makljen) during the operation against the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They took them there in two groups. One group, of 26 persons, managed to escape from there to the territory under the control of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whereas HVO simply executed the other group. Their mortal remains were found and exhumed from the secondary mass grave in the village of Lapsunj on 24 September 1998 (in total 21 mortal remains).

Croatia forces completely destroyed the following Bosniac settlements: Tošćanica, Lizoperci, Grevići, Gračac, Ustirama, Heljdovi, Klek, Gračanica, Paroš, Parcani, Gorica, Škrobućani, Munikoze, Prajina, Donji and Gornji Krančići, Lug Donji and Gornji Višnjani, Blace, Here, Lapsunj, Kovačevo Polje, Varvata, and Orašac.

In the territory of Prozor (municipality) 254 Bosniacs were killed: men, women, and children.

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