TESTIMONIES OF SERB CAPTIVES IN DERVENTA CAMPS

BANJA LUKA, JULY 19 /SRNA/ - The Memorial Center of Republika Srpska has documented testimonies of captured Serbs in the Derventa camps, where they were subjected to daily beatings, torture, sexual abuse, and forced labor on the front lines.

Former camp detainees and family members of those who did not live to see freedom spoke about the horrors they endured. Ostoja Šarčević was captured during the attack on Čardak on April 26, 1992. He was detained at the Military Hall and in the Rabić hangars. During his 55 days in captivity, he lost more than 30 kilograms, the Memorial Center said. He remembers the day he was brought to the Military Hall, at the entrance of which there was a sign reading "Home under HOS," and where Serbs were already being detained. The prisoners were lined up, and orders were given by Azra Bašić, a member of the Croatian Defense Council /HVO/. She ordered them to strip, hand over their jewelry and personal belongings, and forced those who had dinars on them to eat the money. They were then forced to have salt poured into their mouths and were brutally beaten. "One of those who beat us made me lick his boots. My blood was on them," Šarčević testified for the Memorial Center. He also spoke about the moment when Azra Bašić killed captured prisoner Blagoje Đuraš by slitting his throat. Blagoje Đuraš’s son, Slaviša, also spoke about his father’s suffering for the Memorial Center and the "Homeland" podcast. He testified about his father’s murder, decades-long search for his remains, efforts to identify those responsible, and the struggle to ensure that the crime is not forgotten. The married couple Milorad and Borka Gunjević were captured during the attack on Čardak on April 26, 1992. Borka spent three days in the JNA Military Hall in Derventa. Around forty women were held in a restaurant on the ground floor, while the cries and screams of men being beaten and tortured could be heard constantly from the floor above. The detainees were subjected to so-called lectures in which they were told that Serbs were criminals. One of the women, gripping Borka’s hand, said through tears: "Oh God, what are we going to do, Borka? They will slaughter us all." Fear reached its peak when the detainees were told that for every shell fired at Derventa, one Serb would be killed. Milorad Gunjević was not exchanged. He was taken from the JNA Military Hall for forced labor - digging trenches - and never returned. According to available documentation, he was killed on June 19, 1992, at Tomasovo Brdo near Derventa. Čedo Prodić was captured on April 26, 1992, during the attack on Čardak. Before his exchange on July 12, he was held in the camps at the JNA Military Hall in Derventa, Rabić, Polje, and Tulek near Brod. "They burned parts of the prisoners' bodies — their noses and ears. They beat us both at night and during the day. We were forced to sing Ustasha songs. It was hell," he said. He also testified before the judicial institutions of BiH about his captivity and the crimes he endured, and he left his complete testimony in the archives of the Memorial Center of Republika Srpska. He also left a testimony about his brother Bojan, who was killed in 1994 near Teslić as a member of the Army of Republika Srpska. Mirko Marković and his father Ilija were captured on May 2, 1992, and taken to the JNA Military Hall in Derventa, and later to the Rabić camp. During more than four months in captivity, they were subjected to daily beatings, humiliation, torture, and forced labor on the front lines. Mirko witnessed his father Ilija being taken out at dawn and beaten. He tried to rush to his aid, but other detainees held him back, telling him that otherwise they would all be killed. He also testified about the torture of doctors Željko Stajičić and Drago Knežević, as well as the killing of Duško Marčeta while digging trenches. While Mirko and his father were in the camp, his mother Vukica was captured. According to his testimony, she was held in a house where cigarettes were extinguished on her face and body, after which she was sexually abused. Shortly afterwards, she was found dead in a well. During the Defensive-Patriotic War, even before the formation of the Army of Republika Srpska, Croatian and Muslim forces attacked the Serb population in Derventa. At the same time, several camps for Serbs were established, the most notorious of which were the Military Hall and the Rabić camp, which were under the control of the 103rd Brigade of the Croatian Defense Council /HVO/. Several hundred Serbs passed through the camps in Derventa, where they were subjected to torture, beatings, humiliation, and other forms of wartime abuse.