Several hundred of former inmates of the Trnopolje camp and their families gathered on Friday to mark the 31st anniversary of the foundation of the camp near the northern town of Prijedor, where more than 30 thousand Bosniaks, including women and children, were tortured, some of them losing their lives there.

The facilities were discovered by British war reporters on August 5, 1992, a few months after its opening, who took photos of the starved inmates behind the wire.

According to the ‘Prijedor 92' Prisoners’ Association, more than 30,000 people passed through the camp, while according to the judgment of the Hague-based UN court, the camp was intended for women and children.

Mirsad Duratovic, the head of the Regional Union of the Banjaluka region camp inmates association said that the Memorial Room of the Trnopolje camp is in its final phase.

“We expected to open it today but due to the lack of funds and scheduled works, it was delayed a bit. The space itself is the property of the City of Prijedor, we got it free of charge from the City,” said Dautovic.

He explained that what remains to be done is to arrange the exterior, and that the experts would take care of the interior arrangement.

According to him, there is enough material to be used, including photos, videos, verdicts, excerpts from verdicts, so that the memorial room will remain “to tell the story of the Trnopolje camp when there are no more surviving witnesses.”

Former camp inmate Fikret Alic, known as the ‘man behind the wire’ from the famous photo of British journalists, which was seen around the world, said that Trnopolje was a place where women, children and old people perished.

“The last massacre of the population of Prijedor district and other places was completed here. A place that is the worst to be reminded of, even today I would not visit it, but we come here only to say that there was a massacre of the civilian population here,” Alic said.