Trnopolje camp was a detention camp (also referred to as ghetto, prison and concentration camp) established in the village of Trnopolje near the city of Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first months of the Bosnian War (1992-1995). Nominally "a transit camp" for members of the non-Serb (mainly Bosnian Muslim/Bosniak) population of the Prijedor region it was described by a United Nations Security Council report as "a concentration camp" [1]. Human Rights Watch likewise classified it as a concentration camp [2])
The camp was established and run by the authorities of Republika Srpska and local paramilitary Serb police to confine and detain Bosniak and Bosnian Croat civilian population found "innocent" by the Serbs after "investigation". It was similar to, but less brutal than, the Keraterm, Omarska and Manjača camps that were also opened in the vicinity but served to detain those being "interrogated" or found "guilty" (and "awaiting trial"). According to the Bassiouni Commission Report, United Nations Security Council Document S/1994/674/Add.2 (Vol. I), 28 December 1994 "... the regime at the Trnopolje camp was far better than in Omarska and Keraterm; none the less harassment and malnutrition was a problem for all the inmates. Rapes, beatings and other kinds of torture and even killings were not rare. ... Albeit Logor Trnopolje was not a death camp like Logor Omarska or Logor Keraterm, the label «concentration camp» is none the less justified for Logor Trnopolje due to the regime prevailing in the camp."- VI. According to the ICTY prosecution several hundred non-Serbs were killed at Trnopolje.
The camp
The camp, which was situated on the grounds of a school and a community center and approximately three hundred square meters in size, was enclosed by wire fencing, including barbwire, and surrounded by machine gun emplacements. According to subsequent testimony from witnesses, compared to other detention camps in the region Trnopolje was a relatively low-security staging area for the forcible deportation of non-Serbs from the Prijedor area. Detainees were fed only sporadically, but were allowed to forage for food outside the detention area's perimeter[3], which explains the widely varying nourishment condition of the inmates.
Women, children and elderly persons comprised the majority of some 6,000 forcibly interned persons who passed through Trnopolje.citation needed However, some 1,900 men who had been forcibly displaced from their villages were also detained in this camp before they were transferred to or from Omarska, Keraterm or Manjaca camps. Most of those detained in the Trnopolje camp lived in tents, the school or other buildings within the camp's perimeter. Although abuses in the Trnopolje camp were more random and not as severe as in Omarska, Keraterm and Manjaca, gross abuses did occur. Men were taken from the camp by guards and were subsequently "disappeared".citation needed In a few cases a detainees were shot at random by guards.citation needed There were about 300 reported killings or incidents of forced disappearance in the camp, and far more reported incidents of systematic rape of female detainees.citation needed
Discovery
The camp was discovered by the international media in July 1992 at which point the wire fence was removed.citation needed In August 1992, during the closure of the camp, some 200 former male inmates were separated and killed in the Koricani Cliffs massacre.[1]
There was some controversy regarding the Trnopolje footage, due to claims of "faking" the reports. Allegations promoted by the British Living Marxism (LM) paper, prompted the Independent Television News (ITN) network to accuse the LM of libel. ITN won the case, effectively forcing the paper to close down.[4]
See also
External links and references
David Campbell (2002): Atrocity, memory, photography: imaging the concentration camps of Bosnia - the case of ITN versus Living Marxism, Part 1. Journal of Human Rights, vol 1, number 1.
David Campbell (2002): Atrocity, memory, photography: imaging the concentration camps of Bosnia - the case of ITN versus Living Marxism, Part 2. Journal of Human Rights, vol 1, number 2.
|
