Manjača camp

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Manjača camp detainees in 1992
Manjača camp detainees in 1992

Manjača camp (pronounced:Mañacha) was a detention camp (also referred to as prison and concentration camp) on mountain Manjača near the city of Banja Luka in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Croatian War and Bosnian War from 1991 to 1995. The camp was founded by the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) and authorities of Republika Srpska (RS) and was used to collect and confine thousands of male prisoners of Croat and Bosniak nationalities.

The camp was shut down under international pressure in late 1992 but was reopened in October 1995. At that time it was estimated that total of between 4,500 and 6,000 non-Serbs primarily from Sanski Most and Banja Luka areas have passed through the camp. When the camp was captured in 1995 by the Bosnian authorities some 85 corpses were found associated with killings at the camp. Some 1,000 people are still missing from the Sanski Most that were deported to Manjača camp.

Manjaca was never captured during the war and remains today in RS. In early 1996 both the former concentration camp and the neighbouring army camp were opened to IFOR personnel for inspection following the Dayton Agreement.

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[edit] Background

The Manjača camp began its operation during the 1991 Croatian War between JNA and Croatian forces. At that time numerous Croatian prisoners of war were held at the camp. With the start of Bosnian War in early 1992 the camp began to admit civilian predominantly Bosniak detainees.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross there were 3,737 prisoners held at Manjača camp. Exact number of people held at this camp is somewhat of an uncertainty since detainees were continually transferred between other camps including Omarska camp, Trnopolje camp and Keraterm camp. The camp was the site of human rights abuses, namely the regular and systematic beatings and killings of detainees, resulting in indictments and convinctions by the ICTY United Nations tribunal for former Yugoslavia. [1] Most reports indicate that the camp contained male prisoners of all ages but mostly between the ages of 18 and 60. However, there are allegations that in the early spring of 1992, a small number of women were held at the camp and raped.

According to a report of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the administrators of this facility who were officials of the army of the RS, maintained that the prisoners were prisoners of war. However, other observers consider that most of them probably never bore arms, and were detained simply because their age and Bosniak ethnic origin made them potential combatants in the eyes of the Serbian authorities.

In the detention facilities, many prisoners were killed, tortured, and subjected to other inhumane treatment by RS forces especially targeting prominent individuals, such as intellectual, professional, business, political and religious leaders. At a minimum, during the period from late May 1992 to early August 1992, hundreds of detainees, identities of many of whom are known, died. Almost all of the survivors were eventually forcibly transferred or deported from the area.

[edit] Recent developments

Some of the RS officials responsible for running the camp have since been indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes including Milomir Stakic and Stojan Zupljanin. Some have been convicted while others are still awaiting trials at the ICTY.

[edit] See also

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