Visegrad's Serbian Municipality obstructs memorial for Bosnian genocide-victims

The Serbian Municipality of Visegrad decided to send out police forces to prevent a public memorial service for the survivors of the genocide against Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) that took place in the eastern Bosnian town near the Drina river during the Bosnian war (1992-1995). According to a report by the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), more than a hundred masked special unit policemen were sent to the Muslim cemetery Strážište on early Thursday morning to remove the word "genocide" from a commemorative plaque at the memorial site. Before, on December 24, 2013, the city administration had ordered the demolition of a house in which Serbian troops had burned alive 70 women, children and elderly men. An international campaign (in which the German and Bosnian STP-branches were involved too) was able to prevent the demolition.

The STP's General Secretary, Tilman Zülch, has sent a request for help to the German Chancellor. In the appeal letter, the Göttingen-based human rights organization asks Angela Merkel to try to protect the surviving victims of war crimes and to help them preserve a worthy memorial for their lost relatives. In 1991, the municipality of Visegrad had 21,199 inhabitants, 63.5 percent of them Bosniaks. Today, there are less than 12,000 inhabitants. About 1,500 of them are Bosniaks who returned after the war. According to the STP, the Muslim people in Visegrad are trying to ensure that every Muslim grave stele on the cemetery bears the word "genocide".

During the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, genocide-like crimes were committed in the town near the Drina river. According to estimates, members of Serbian paramilitary units killed at least 3,000 Bosniak civilians. Hundreds of Muslims were executed on the streets, confined to their homes or burned alive. More than 2,000 Bosniaks were imprisoned in concentration camps in the school buildings Hasan Veletovac, Petar Kocic and the Middle School Center and in the barracks of Uzamnica. Most of them were killed after being tortured. The bodies were thrown from a bridge over the Drina – which is famous because of the eponymous book by Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric. The Drina became one of the biggest mass graves in Bosnia. Sometimes, when the water level is low, the river still reveals mortal remains of the victims. About 600 Muslim children, women and men are still considered to be missing.

The Serb forces also set up rape camps in Visegrad, such as the motel Vilina Vlas, the hotel Bikavac and the fire station, where hundreds of Bosniac women were systematically raped and abused by militiamen who fought for the war criminals Vojislav Šešelj and Željko Ražnatovi ("Arkan"). In the course of an "ethnic cleansing", all mosques were destroyed in and around Visegrad in order to wipe out any references to the Bosniak history.