CHARGES PRESSED AGAINST GENOCIDAL SERBIA FOR CREATING CONCENTRATION CAMPS

BELGRADE, Serbia (April 2,2008) – "Humanitarian Rights Fund from Belgrade initiated four judicial procedures against the state of Serbia, for compensating for 11 Bosnian citizens who were imprisoned in the Sljivovica and Mitrovo Polje concentration camps in Serbia," Sandra Orlovic, member of the Fund said.Assisted by the Belgrade Humanitarian Rights Fund, a group of Bosnians initiated judicial procedure because of the imprisonment, torture and humiliation of Bosnian civilians detained by the genocidal Serbian aggressor in the Sljivovica and Mitrovo Polje Concentration Camps.

The first charges were pressed in November and December 2007. The Fund called the state institutions in the genocidal Serbia to help the victims claim compensation through the repair programs for the victims on the basis of human rights breech. All the crimes were committed by members of the genocidal Serbian military and police.

”The Fund contacted the Bosnian Association of Concentration Camps Survivors and found out that there used to be two concentration camps on the territory of Serbia, formed as ‘refuge centres’ for Bosnian civilians, after the fall of Srebrenica and Zepa. However, the people had got everything but refuge. They were exposed to horrific maltreatment of Serbian army and police, primarily police which had safeguarded the sight”, Orlovic stated.

About 800 Bosnian civilians were imprisoned in these concentration camps in the genocidal Serbia.These Bosnian civilians were mostly from the eastern Bosnian town of Zepa. All of them had crossed the Drina River in August 1995 and were transported by the genocidal Serbian aggressor to the Sljivovica and Mitrovo Polje concentration camps. There, they had undergone a “terrible and brutal torture. There were several cases of murder, as well as sexual harassment, forced labour and starvation”.

In mid-August 1995, the prisoners were registered by the International Red Cross Committee (IRCC).

”In the past year, we interviewed about 60 concentration camps survivors. We initiated the court proceedings on behalf of those who had spent the time imprisoned over four months, or even more. Those people, in consequence, have serious physical and mental difficulties. This process will be a long and hard one, because Serbian authorities have legally limited the possibility of damage compensation and also because of the fact that those people have not officially been registered as victims. We are fighting and we hope that we will prove by the verdicts something that will, it seems to me, be a surprise for all – there had been concentration camps formed in the Serbian territory, in which Bosnians and Croatians were tortured”, Orlovic stated.
.