More than 500 parents of murdered children from Prijedor and activists from the non-governmental organisation "Jer me se tice" (Because it concerns me) marked the White Ribbon Day at the main square in Prijedor marking the expulsion and murder of 3,176 Prijedor residents, among whom were 102 children.
One of the organizers of this year's marking was Nikola Kuridza who said the gathered residents are demanding the Prijedor authorities build a memorial to the Prijedor children murdered in 1992.
“We suggested three locations to the city authorities, but they told us they can’t change the regulatory plan because of this,” Kuridza said. He added they even have an alternative. They suggested the bridge between the old town and the city centre be reconstructed into a memorial bridge for the murdered children.
The parents of the murdered children have been demanding that the city authorities build a memorial site for all the murdered children, but the authorities have never agreed to their proposals.
One other member of this NGO Goran Zoric told N1 that the city authorities are doing everything in their power to avoid the construction of the memorial. He said that a false information has been repeatedly told to the public and the media that parents want to build the memorial in the centre of Prijedor.
“None of the City officials with a Serb last name ever came to this marking. On the other hand, Bosniak representatives who are not originally from Prijedor regularly come to mark this day. During the years we realized that politicians are our political enemies and we must make them do their job and act according to the basic democratic principles and in accordance with the principles of law and justice,” Zoric.said.
Zoric also confirmed the numerous attempts at discrediting their NGO and their cause. The city authorities, he said, learned not to be as explicit in their intentions.
Survivors of the wartime killing of non-Serbs in the northwestern town of Prijedor are commemorating May 31, 1992, the day when they were ordered to put white ribbons on their arms to mark themselves as non-Serbs.
The wartime campaign to eliminate all non-Serbs from the Prijedor area took 3,176 lives, mainly at the start of the 1992-1995 war. The victims include 102 children, and this years’ commemoration was focused on them. When Bosnian Serb forces took exclusive control of Prijedor in 1992, they ordered the non-Serb population to wear white ribbons around their arms and put white sheets in their windows.
The portions militarily controlled by the Serb forced remained part of Bosnia but were turned into a semi-autonomous entity called Republika Srpska.
Prijedor is now in the Republika Srpska and non-Serbs who survived and returned to Prijedor are focusing this year’s commemoration on their attempts to build a monument to the children killed in this town, an idea the Serb city authorities reject.
