Keraterm concentration camp

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Keraterm
Concentration camp
Keraterm is located in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Keraterm
Keraterm
Location of Keraterm in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Coordinates44°58′37.0″N 16°43′45.3″E / 44.976944°N 16.729250°E / 44.976944; 16.729250
Locationnear Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Operated byBosnian Serb military and police authorities
CommandantDuško Sikirica
Original useCeramic tile factory
Operationalc. 24 May – c. 30 August 1992
InmatesBosniaks, Bosnian Croats and other non-Serbs
Number of inmatesMore than 3,000 detained during its operation[1]
KilledHundreds; at least 190 in the Room 3 massacre[1][2]

The Keraterm camp was a concentration camp established by Bosnian Serb military and police authorities near Prijedor, in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War. It was located in a former ceramic tile factory and storage complex outside the town. From about 24 May to about 30 August 1992, Serb forces confined more than 3,000 Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat detainees there in inhumane conditions.[1]

Camp and conditions

Keraterm was one of several detention facilities used in the Prijedor area in 1992, along with the Omarska camp and the Trnopolje camp. According to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), detainees at Keraterm were killed, sexually assaulted, tortured, beaten and otherwise subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment.[1]

Most detainees were held inside the factory building in four former storage areas known as rooms 1, 2, 3 and 4. Conditions were extremely overcrowded, and detainees often could not lie down. Sanitary facilities were almost non-existent, food and water were grossly inadequate, and detainees received little or no medical care. The ICTY indictment stated that guards and others who entered the camp regularly subjected detainees to physical violence, humiliation, degradation and fear of death.[1]

Beatings were common and were carried out with fists, wooden batons, metal rods, baseball bats, rifle butts, knives and other weapons. The indictment also stated that corpses of detainees were piled near a garbage area beside room 4 before being removed from the camp.[1]

Room 3 massacre

One of the best-known crimes committed at Keraterm was the massacre of detainees held in room 3 in late July 1992. Around 20 July, detainees from the Brdo area of Prijedor municipality, including the villages of Hambarine, Čarakovo, Rakovčani, Bišćani and Rizvanovići, were brought to Keraterm and crowded into room 3. On about 24 July, machine guns were placed in front of the rooms, and guards and soldiers later opened fire into room 3 with machine guns and heavy-calibre weapons.[1]

The ICTY indictment alleged that at least 140 men were murdered in the attack and about 50 were wounded. The following morning, about 20 surviving detainees were selected, taken outside and summarily executed.[1] The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals later stated that, in the trial of Radovan Karadžić, it was established that at least 190 Bosnian Muslims were killed in the Room 3 massacre.[2]

War crimes trials

Several people connected with Keraterm were later prosecuted before the ICTY or before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Duško Sikirica, who was in charge of Keraterm, pleaded guilty to persecutions as a crime against humanity and was sentenced by the ICTY to 15 years' imprisonment. Damir Došen, a shift commander at the camp, pleaded guilty to persecutions and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Dragan Kolundžija, another shift commander, also pleaded guilty to persecutions and was sentenced to three years' imprisonment.[3]

Predrag Banović, a guard at Keraterm, pleaded guilty to persecution as a crime against humanity and was sentenced by the ICTY to eight years' imprisonment.[4]

In the Mejakić et al. case, which concerned crimes at the Omarska and Keraterm camps, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina convicted several defendants of crimes against humanity. Dušan Fuštar, a guard shift commander at Keraterm, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. Duško Knežević, who had no official position in the camps but regularly entered Omarska and Keraterm and took part in abuses, was sentenced to 31 years' imprisonment. Željko Mejakić, a senior official at the Omarska camp, was sentenced to 21 years' imprisonment, while Momčilo Gruban was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment after appeal.[5]

See also

References