Abandoned by the State: Bosnia’s Wartime Torture Victims

Alic says that he still remembers everything about his ordeal, and is still woken from sleep by nightmares, 27 years afterwards. What also angers him is that the state does not seem to care about him and the other detainees and torture victims of the 1992-95 war.

"For the 60 days I spent in concentration camps, from Keraterm to Trnopolje, I haven't received a single Bosnian mark. As a former prisoner, I don't even have the right to get proper [free] healthcare," Alic told BIRN.

Alic lived and worked for many years in Denmark, which now pays him a disability pension. "If I hadn't earned my income in Denmark, I would have been like any other former prisoner in Bosnia and Herzegovina - a man without any rights," he said.

Bosnia's Law on the Protection of Victims of Torture, which is intended to provide financial assistance, help with rehabilitation and other benefits, was first drafted in 2006. A second draft followed in 2011 and a third in 2017.

The draft law defines wartime detainees and people who were raped or subjected to sexual violence as victims of torture, as well as those who suffered physical abuse.

But the law has yet to be adopted, even though Bosnia and Herzegovina is bound to enact it under the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, both of which the country has signed.

In 2006, the UN Committee Against Torture also urged the authorities to ratify the law immediately, and the European Commission, in its annual reports on the progress of Bosnia and Herzegovina's progress towards EU integrations, has repeatedly stated that it should be ratified as soon as...