05/31/2025
Thirty-three years ago today, the Serb authorities in Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) ordered all the non-Serb residents to mark their houses with a white flag or sheet, and to wear a white armband if they left their house. This was the first time since 1939, when the N**i decree required the Polish Jews to wear white armbands with the Star of David on their sleeve, that members of an ethnic or religious group were marked for extermination in such a manner.
The date May 31, 1992 was the beginning of the campaign of extermination of the non-Serb population in Prijedor, which resulted in the ethnic cleansing of 94% of the Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Bosnian Croat (Bosnian Catholic) population from the Prijedor municipality.
As a result of ethnic cleansing of the Prijedor municipality in BiH, including the town of Kozarac - 53,000 of its Bosniak residents were expelled from their homes, over 3,000 unarmed civilians were executed, and 31,000 civilians were interned in various Serb-run concentration camps.
Today, thousands of people all over the world commemorate and draw attention to the ongoing human rights abuses of Prijedor's non-Serb population. The authorities in Prijedor continue to deny historical facts and have refused to allow survivors to build a memorial in order to commemorate the victims.
To learn more about the crimes committed in Prijedor, ACBH urges you to listen to Season 2 of the the award-winning podcast Untold Killing by Remembering Srebrenica found here:
The award-winning podcast Untold Killing by Remembering Srebrenica is back with season 2! The Guardian named it as one of the best podcasts of the week stating, “continuing its detailed investigation of the Bosnian war, the second season of this incisive podcast tells the story of the
