Čelebići warehouse

Interned Serbs in the Čelebići camp, 1992.

Model of the Čelebići camp, reconstructed as evidence for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia .

The Čelebići prison camp was located in Čelebići, a place in the Konjic municipality in central Bosnia , during the Bosnian War . The camp, in which Croatian and Bosniak soldiers held several hundred Serbs, existed from May to December 1992. According to the UN report, people were killed, tortured, sexually abused, beaten and generally treated in a cruel and inhuman way.

background

Halls of the former prison camp on the Sarajevo – Ploče railway line (2017)

During the Bosnian War, the Konjic community, and in particular the road between Sarajevo and Mostar over the Ivan Pass, was of vital importance for the Bosnian government troops , as they represented the only efficient access to the besieged Bosnian capital. At the beginning of the Bosnian War, however, units of the Bosnian Serbs had taken control of places on the road between Konjic and the pass (e.g. Bradina and Donje Selo) and on the alternative route via Glavatičevo and the mountains to Mostar. On May 4, 1992, Serbian troops began artillery attacks on Konjic from the surrounding mountains. The Konjice authorities had repeatedly negotiated unsuccessfully with the Serbian units in Bradina and Donje Selo to lift the blockade.

In May 1992 armed groups of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats attacked and captured various villages in the Konjic region that were mostly inhabited by Bosnian Serbs, including Bradina and Donje Selo on the road to Sarajevo. The attackers drove the residents from their homes and transported them to the Čelebići camp.

The Croatian Zdravko Mucić, as the commander of the Čelebići prison camp, was responsible for its administration. He also supervised all prison guards and those who had access to the camp and mistreated people there. In 1998 he was sentenced to seven years in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague; in 2001 the sentence was increased to nine years. The Bosnian Hazim Delic was the deputy commander . He was also able to prove that he was actively involved in the abuse. In 1998 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison and in 2001 the sentence was reduced to 18 years.

Web links

• United Nations report
• Report on the Swiss site Trial Watch about the camp commandant Zdravko Mucic
• Report on the Swiss site Trial Watch about the deputy camp commandant Hazim Delić

Coordinates: 43 ° 40 ′ 51.9 ″  N , 17 ° 53 ′ 33.6 ″  E