SEVERAL FORMER CAMP INMATES LAID FLOWERS AT GATES OF "SILOS" CAMP

SARAJEVO, JANUARY 19 /SRNA/ - Several former camp inmates who were held in the "Silos" camp in Tarčin laid flowers today at the gates of the camp, ahead of the commemoration of the anniversary of its closure.

Former inmate Slobodan Mrkajić said that he had been through a total of seven camps, and that he spent 16 days in the "Silos" camp, after which he was transferred to Čelebići. He also stated that justice for the former detainees of the "Silos" camp has not been served, noting that the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH has prosecuted only some of those responsible. Former "Silos" detainee Savo Mrkajić told journalists that he spent three years, three months, and three days in the camp, and that he escaped on August 31, 1995. According to him, returning to the place where he was detained brings back horrific memories, but he says that he is nevertheless happy to have remained mentally sound after everything. "I do not hate anyone, and I am grateful to God and to my mother that I am like that, that I can sleep peacefully, and that my conscience is clear. We survived hunger, beatings, torture, and humiliation," Mrkajić emphasized. Another former camp inmate Slavko Krstić pointed out that he was detained on his birthday, June 20, 1992, weighing 106 kilograms, and that he was released on November 8 of the same year in the first prisoner exchange, weighing 49 kilograms. He stated that a major problem is that those who were in charge of the camp have not been convicted, while only the "small" figures have been sentenced. He says it pains him that he has never heard an apology. More than 600 Serb civilians endured the most horrific torture in the "Silos" camp, including physical and psychological abuse, beatings, and starvation, and 24 of them did not survive. This camp will remain remembered as one of the three largest camps on the territory of today’s Federation of BiH, as well as one of 126 prisons for Serbs in the area of wartime Sarajevo. Most of the camp inmates who lived to see freedom now reside in overseas countries, far from the site of the crimes and the notorious camp, which was closed on Saint Sava’s Day - January 27, 1996 - two months after the Dayton Peace Agreement was initialed and after the deadline set for the closure of camps in BiH. The camp mainly held civilians from the areas of Tarčin, Pazarići, and surrounding places, men aged between 14 and 85, as well as 11 women, one of whom was six months pregnant, and 11 reserve soldiers captured on the front line in Hadžići. The youngest among them was fourteen-year-old Leo Kapetanović, and the oldest was eighty-five-year-old Vaso Šarenac, who died in the "Silos" camp at a temperature that was always 10 degrees lower than outside.