Three Decades Since Strpce Murders, Families Still Awaiting Justice

Monument in Prijepolje (BETAPHOTO/YouTube/PrintScreen)

Feb. 27 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the brutal crime in Strpce, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where members of the Army of Republika Srpska removed 20 passengers from a train stopped at the local train station and subsequently murdered them.

According to several NGOs – namely the Humanitarian Law Center, Women in Black, the Sandzak Committee for Protecting Human Rights and Freedoms, and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights – given that courts of first-instance in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have passed only three verdicts in this case over the last twelve months, the victims’ families have yet to receive justice, despite decades having passed.

On Feb. 27, 1993, Army of Republika Srpska members kidnapped and killed 19 citizens of what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and one unknown person. The victims – including 18 Bosniaks and one Croat residing in Serbia (Belgrade, Prijepolje) and Montenegro (Bijelo Polje, Podgorica) – were removed from a train travelling from Belgrade to Bar. The oldest was 59 years old, while the youngest was 16. To this day, the remains of only four have been recovered, the NGOs’ joint statement recalled.

So far, 14 individuals have been sentenced for the crime, but only two of the verdicts are legally binding.

The NGOs further expressed their expectation that the guilty parties will receive punishments befitting the severity of their crime. The organizations have also asked that the Serbian Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs and other state institutions pass a new law granting the Strpce victims the status of civilian casualties according to international regulations.

The authorities have also been called upon to recognize one of the victims by installing a memorial plate on the New Belgrade building in which he lived – providing appropriate information on the circumstances of his death – and to clearly condemn the removal of the previous memorial.