During the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, Serb forces committed numerous crimes against the Bosniak population in the wider area of the municipality of Višegrad. However, in terms of their brutality and the number of victims, the most massive and most horrific crimes were committed in June, specifically on 14 and 27 June 1992, in the Pionirska Street settlement in Novo Naselje and in the Bikavac neighbourhood. On those occasions, Višegrad perpetrators burned Bosniak civilians alive inside the houses of Adem Omeragić in Pionirska Street and Meho Aljić in Bikavac, Višegrad. Thus, within a period of only thirteen days, these horrific crimes were committed against the Bosniak civilian population of Višegrad.
The first mass crime of burning civilians alive was committed during the night of 14 June 1992 in the house of Adem Omeragić in Pionirska Street in Višegrad. On that occasion, perpetrators led by Milan Lukić burned more than 60 civilians alive. The youngest victim was a two-day-old baby who had not yet even been given a name at the time of the crime. Eight people survived, two of whom later died of natural causes. Members of the special military formation “Avengers” (“Osvetnici”), under the command of Milan Lukić, captured more than 60 Bosniak civilians from the villages of Koritnik and Sase, promising to transport them by bus to territory controlled by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The victims were mostly women, children and elderly persons of different ages. Among the victims of the crime in Pionirska Street, the largest number bore the surname Kurspahić – 39 persons, all from the village of Koritnik.
For this crime, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) issued final convictions against Milan Lukić (life imprisonment) and his cousin Sredoje Lukić (27 years of imprisonment), while Radomir Šušnjar was finally convicted before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment.
It is a paradoxical fact that, despite this carefully planned, prepared and organised mass crime, only three perpetrators have been convicted to date. It is impossible that such an act could have been committed by only three individuals without the involvement of accomplices who remain free today. There are almost no indications that other perpetrators will be brought before justice, which undoubtedly represents a major failure of the judicial institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
On 27 June 1992, only thirteen days after the burning of civilians in Pionirska Street, perpetrators committed another horrific crime in the house of Meho Aljić in the Bikavac neighbourhood of Višegrad, burning 72 Bosniak civilians alive, mostly women, children and elderly persons. The youngest victims were the minor children of Esad Tufekčić: his one-year-old son Ensar and five-year-old daughter Elma. The following morning, on 28 June, the scene near the burned house in Bikavac was horrifying: the remains of the destroyed building lay scattered, while the air was filled with the unbearable smell of burned human bodies.
Before the horrific crime in Pionirska Street and Bikavac, the victims had first been robbed. The looting of innocent and defenceless civilians took place throughout the wider Višegrad area, followed by killings, imprisonment, torture and abuse of Bosniaks, destruction of their homes and property, mining and burning of mosques and other religious buildings, and desecration of cemeteries.
Zehra Turjačanin was the only survivor of the burning of civilians in Bikavac. She managed to break a small upper window of the house, escape through it and save herself from the inferno. She later testified about this horrific crime. She suffered third-degree burns and underwent skin grafting procedures in an attempt to restore damaged tissue. She lost parts of her ears, while her hands remained paralysed. Her entire face was blackened and burned.
Most of the victims of the horrific crime in Bikavac were from the Višegrad area; twenty-three victims alone came from the village of Velika Gostilja. From the village of Prelovo, Mina Vilić (wife of Hamdija) was burned in the house together with her three minor children under the age of ten (Nihada, Nihad and Zineta).
Milan Lukić and Mitar Vasiljević were charged and convicted for the burning of civilians, the same perpetrators who, thirteen days earlier, had burned civilians in the house in Pionirska Street.
It is particularly significant to emphasise that the judges of the ICTY qualified the burning of civilians in Pionirska Street and Bikavac as among the gravest crimes against humanity, considering these acts part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the Bosniak civilian population. Numerous killings, extermination, enslavement, deportations and/or forcible transfers of the Bosniak population, imprisonment and other forms of deprivation of liberty committed in violation of fundamental rules of international law represent a long list of crimes and acts with genocidal elements against Bosniaks from the Drina River valley, carried out in pursuit of the project of so-called Greater Serbia.
The end of the 20th century was marked by the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina and the commission of mass crimes. These crimes, in certain aspects, reflected patterns of violence committed against the Muslim population during the Second World War, when Chetnik formations also carried out numerous crimes. During that period as well, civilians were locked inside houses, hand grenades were thrown into them, and the houses were subsequently set on fire.
Today, the long-standing silence of both the perpetrators of these heinous crimes and many Serb residents of Višegrad remains deeply concerning. Such horrific and organised crimes, carefully planned and executed, could not have been committed with the knowledge of only a small number of individuals.
Local authorities and Serb citizens in Višegrad have persistently remained silent about these crimes, believing that over time fewer people will speak about them, remember them and demand accountability.
At the same time, attempts have been made to conceal or minimise responsibility by portraying Milan Lukić as someone who commanded an alleged paramilitary formation rather than a special military formation of the Army of Republika Srpska within the 2nd Podrinje Light Infantry Brigade of Višegrad. This approach primarily seeks to demonstrate that higher structures of command and control were not connected to the formation, thereby attempting to diminish the responsibility of the Army of Republika Srpska for the horrific crimes committed against Bosniaks.
The remembrance of these crimes is an obligation of all survivors, especially in a time of persistent revisionism and attempts to falsify established historical facts.
Author: Prof. Dr. Ermin Kuka, Scientific Advisor at the University of Sarajevo – Institute for Research of Crimes against Humanity and International Law
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