Human rights activists recalled the 29th anniversary of the bloody ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Bosnian Kupres

The Veritas Documentary and Information Center recalled that 29 years ago, Croatian militants killed 54 Serb militias and civilians on the territory of the Kupres Plateau, and 150 Serbs were sent to camps in Western Herzegovina and Croatia.

No one has yet been punished for these crimes, committed in 1992, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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According to the Veritas Documentary and Information Center, Croatian National Guardsmen (ZNG), neo-Ustashes from the HOS national battalions, who acted without a twinge of conscience on the territory of a neighboring state, as well as units of the Bosnian Croats HVO, took part in the massacres and abuse of the Serbs.

Croatian fighters launched an attack on Serbian villages on the Kupres plateau in Bosnia on April 3, 1992, and by April 6 they occupied the entire plateau, including the district center. On the same day, Croatian militants gathered about sixty Serbian Territorial Defense fighters and civilians in the restaurant of the Kvalitet company in Kupres, after which they killed Stevo Lugonja and Dragan Celebić in front of other prisoners.

The next morning, April 7, the prisoners were forced to walk half naked through the snow and cold to Šujica, 23 kilometers from Kupres, and Zarko Zivanic was shot along the way. From Šujica, the captured Serbs were taken by truck to Split, beating and torturing them along the way, with particular zeal for Petar Spremo, who later died in the Laura camp from the consequences of torture.

Upon arrival at "Lora", the Serbs from Kupres found a dozen neighbors captured in Donji Malovan, and several more Serbs from Prebilovac and Mostar. In "Laura" they were subjected to severe electric shocks, with their heads slammed against a wall and forced to beat each other.

After six days in "Lora", they were taken by truck to Zadar and divided into two groups, where they were constantly beaten over the next two days. The prisoners were then loaded back onto trucks and sent to Eminovo Selo near Duvno, where the prisoners were again subjected to abuse and ill-treatment.

Two days later, the arrested Serbs were transferred to Vrgorac, and before the transfer, eight of them were separated from the group: brothers Dragan and Milivoje Masici, brothers Radovan and Marko Masici, Ratko Lugona, Djoko Maric, Nikola and Dusan Duvnjaki. At Vrgorač Mila, Spremo died in his cell as a result of a beating, and the prisoners buried him in a nearby quarry.

After six days spent in Vrgorac, the Serbs from Kupres were taken to Ljubuška, where they stayed for a total of 20 days, of which they were constantly tortured for the first ten days.

The unfortunates were exchanged on May 14, 1992 in Žitnica near Drniš. Stojan Zubic was taken to the exchange on a stretcher and died in hospital in Knin on the third day after the exchange. Nine days earlier, priest Zoran Perkovic was traded there with eight broken ribs.

The remains of the tortured Sprem brothers were handed over to the Serbian side in November 1993. To this day, nothing is known about the fate of the sixteen Serbs separated from the group in Zadar and Eminov Selo. No one was brought to criminal responsibility for the murders and torture of defenseless people.

According to the 1991 census, about 5 thousand Serbs lived in Kupres, now only 600 Serbs live in this area, which is part of the Federation (Croat-Bosniak) of Bosnia and Herzegovina.