RATNI ZLOČINI

BiH – Crimes Against Serbs – Silos Camp

 

SARAJEVO, January 26 (SRNA) – The last concentration camp in BiH to close was Silos – on St. Sava’s Day 15 years ago, two months after the Dayton accords were initialled.

The Silos camp, which had held more than 600 Serbian civilians, on that day released 44 inmates, SRNA was told by Slavko Jovicic, who spent 1,334 days – 44 months – in Muslim-run death camps. The war in BiH lasted 42 months!

“The camp opened May 11, 1992, and closed on the same date as the notorious WWII Nazi camp Auschwitz. I don’t know if it was a coincidence, but I am sure there is something symbolic here,” said Jovicic.

He said that 24 Serbs died as a result of daily tortures and starvation.

“Some 50 Serbs were killed in the ‘tunnel of Serbian suffering,’ which the Muslims called the ‘tunnel of salvation’ – six hailing from Silos and the rest from concentration camp in Hrasnica,” Jovicic said.

He stressed that Silos held men aged 14 to 90, and 11 women, one of whom was six months pregnant.

“Other than 11 reserve soldiers captured on Hrasnica front line, the internees were all civilians,” states Jovicic.

“According to my information and evidence, over 600 Serbian civilians, mostly from Pazarici and Tarcin, were held at Silos at one time or another,” says Jovicic, who is a member of the BiH House of Representatives.

In addition to the daily physical abuse and beatings, these Serbs were submitted to the worst punishment known to civilised man – starvation.

The only meals were five spoonfuls of some liquid and a piece of bread, which circumstance lasted for six months, changing only after the ICRC began delivering food to the starved internees.

“At the beginning, I lost 34 kg in 63 days, falling from my initial weight of 77 to 43. Were it not for my skin, my bones would have fallen apart. We weighed ourselves on scales used for wheat,” adds Jovicic.

In 1993, the Muslims began taking the Silos inmates to Muslim front lines in Hrasnica, Mount Igman, the Jewish Cemetery, Ormanj, and so on, where they dug canals, built fortifications, bunkers, and the like, relates Jovicic.

“Silos was the most notorious of the concentration camps in BiH, not only because it lasted the longest but also because the internees were tortured by 167 methods, according the statements of witnesses,” stresses Jovicic.

He said that all the documentation on Silos was surrendered to ICTY prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, but that she never gave a thought to prosecuting any of the Muslim criminals, on whom there is incontrovertible evidence of their commission of the most horrific crimes against innocent Serbian civilians.

He says that the BiH Prosecution is behaving the same way. This institution has not even opened a single case where Serbs were the victims; in the meantime, 70 of the surviving inmates have died.

“The Silos camp remains a horrific reminder of the Serbs sufferings, which the contemporary, civilised world can not even imagine,” SRNA was told by this survivor of the Silos concentration camp.