Zijo Ribic, a survivor who lost his entire family to the Bosnian war, said he will seek justice with international courts after a court in Serbia freed members of a group accused of killing 27 Roma civilians and destroying a mosque in his village of Skocic near Bosnia’s eastern town of Zvornik.

The Belgrade Court of Appeals confirmed the acquittal of members of the “Simini Cetnici” (Sima’s Chetniks) group which was believed to have been behind the massacre in Skocic.

Only three of their members received prison sentences for raping three women. Three others were set free.

Ribic barely survived being shot by a firing squad. He said he is shocked by the ruling.

“The judge gave them the right to appeal, but he did not give us that right. I really don’t understand these courts. Not only in Serbia, but also in Bosnia,” Ribic said.

Ribic received support from the Serbian Humanitarian Law Center, which said the Appeals Court in Belgrade made serious mistakes that could influence future war crimes cases as it raised the bar on what is needed for complex cases of war crimes to be proven by demanding proof for “every act by every individual” exactly in a long time period. This is hardly possible for prosecutors to do, the organisation said.

Ribic has been seeking justice since 2006 and has testified against the group that he said has killed and raped nine members of his family.

He said he will not give up.

“If not in Belgrade, I will go to an international court. The fight for justice is the only thing I have left,” he said, adding that “if justice exists, it can be reached”.

“It will come. If not in this, then in the next world,” he said.

The indictment against the group said that they destroyed the village mosque, gathered the Roma population living in the village into a local house, and beat and raped them there. After that, the indictment said the group transported the victims to nearby Hamzici where they killed them and threw their bodies in a ditch, together with a bomb.

Ribic was the only survivor.