Bosnia marks White Ribbon Day in honor of 3,000 massacre victims

By Talha Ozturk

BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) - Bosnia and Herzegovina marked White Ribbon Day on Wednesday in honor of more than 3,000 civilians killed in the western town of Prijedor.

Thousands in Prijedor and across the country wore white ribbons on their arms to mark the 31st anniversary of the massacre.

A crowd gathered in the center of Prijedor and urged authorities to build a monument in memory of 102 children who were killed.

Fikret Bacic from the Association of Families of Children Murdered in Prijedor said the bodies of 640 people in Prijedor have not yet been found.

Relatives of the victims with white ribbons on their arms attended the event.

On May 31, 1992, the Serbian administration in Prijedor ordered the non-Serb population to wear white stripes on their arms when they left their houses. It was an order that was followed by extermination, murder and persecution.

The Bosnian War began March 1, 1992 and lasted until Dec. 14, 1995.

More than 100,000 people were killed in the war, while 2 million were uprooted from their homes.

The country suffered greatly during its war of independence, which included the siege of Sarajevo and the genocide of Srebrenica -- Europe's worst wartime atrocity since 1945.

Among the 3,176 civilians killed in Prijedor, 102 were children and 258 women. About 30,000 others suffered in concentration camps at Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje on the outskirts of Prijedor.

Most of the killings took place between May and August 1992.