Montenegrin rights groups urged the authorities to punish the perpetrators of the forced deportations of Bosniak refugees 26 years ago and build a memorial to the victims.
Activists from three Montenegrin human rights groups laid wreaths on Friday in front of the town’s police headquarters in the coastal town of Herceg Novi to commemorate the wartime deportation of Bosniak refugees from Montenegro,
At least 66 Bosniaks and some ethnic Serbs were illegally detained and brought to the police headquarters in Herceg Novi, near the border with Bosnia and Croatia, from where they were deported on buses to Bosnian Serb-controlled territory on May 25 and 27, 1992.
Following the deportations, most of the Bosniaks were killed and their remains have yet to be found.
Nine former policemen indicted for the deportations were acquitted in November 2012 because the Podgorica superior court ruled that while the arrests were illegal, they did not constitute a war crime and the nine men were not party to any side in the Bosnian war.
“This year, Montenegro has shown that there are people who do not allow the victims of this crime to be forgotten, persistently demanding the authorities invoke the issue of individual criminal responsibility and build a dignified memorial for victims in order to prevent new crimes,” the NGO Centre for Civic Education, one of the groups commemorating the deportation, said on Friday.
The three NGOs, also including the Human Rights Action and Anima, repeated their call to declare a day of remembrance.
The small, symbolic commemoration in Herceg Novi was also attended by Nedziba Bajrovic, whose husband, Osman Bajrovic, was deported in 1992 and whose remains have yet to be found.
The latest European Commission country reports on Western Balkan states, published in April, highlighted the continuing obstacles to prosecuting war crimes and compensating victims of the conflicts in Montenegro.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
