Two hundred roses were thrown down the Koricani Cliffs, central Bosnia, on Saturday in memory of some 200 Bosniak and Croat men, who were executed on this site on August 21, 1992. Pročitaj više

Family members marked the 29th anniversary as they did in the previous years, accompanied by those from all parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, who came to pay the honour to the victims.

On August 21, 1992, Bosnian Serb police officers rounded up mostly the Bosniak and Croat men detained at the prison camps around the northwestern town of Prijedor and told them they were to be exchanged for Serb prisoners of war.

The Prijedor intervention squad officers instead took the men to the Koricani Cliffs in central Bosnia. They lined them up on a cliff facing down the abyss, ordered them to kneel, and shot them in the back. The bodies fell down the more than 300 metre-high cliffs.

Twelve survived and the remains of seven of those who were executed are still missing.

The UN's Hague-based tribunal and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced 11 Prijedor police officers to a total of 199 years in prison. The victim families’ associations find it unjust and ask Bosnia's judicial bodies to be more strict with their sentences, considering the monstrousness of the crime at the Koricani Cliffs.

“Statistically, 11 Prijedor policemen were sentenced to the total of 199 years for 184 killed. When you use math, it appears that the group got 12.5 years for every person killed,” said Mirsad Duratovic, former war prisoner and the head of the Regional Union of the Prisoner of War Association Banja Luka, adding that the families cannot be satisfied with that.

Seid Omerovic, the head of the Association of War Prisoners of BiH, said this was the place where life ended for 224 PoWs.

“What matters is fighting for the truth, punishing those who are responsible, but also building the presence and future. We cannot do that alone, it has to be done by all peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” he said.