‘The Elderly Were Liquidated’: An Unprosecuted Bosnian Village Atrocity

According to a judgment handed down in a trial at the Hague Tribunal, there was no direct combat in Susanj on June 8, 1993. Former Bosnian Army officers also deny fighting in Susanj. But domestic courts have said that there were at least nine civilian deaths that day, and almost three decades later, relatives of the victims are still waiting for the perpetrators to face justice.

There had been warnings that Susanj and neighbouring villages mainly inhabited by Croats in the Vitez and Travnik areas would be attacked by the Bosnian Army at the start of June 1993. But many villagers, particularly the elderly, had not taken the warnings seriously.

The impact of the wartime violence can still be seen today. Few people who fled Susanj because of the conflict have since returned and nowadays the village, which had 430 residents before the war, is completely depopulated, with only around 20 people aged between 60 and 90 living there.

Anto Vidosevic was the first person to return to Susanj after the war. In 1999, he came back to the house from which his 83-year-old father had been taken away on June 8, 1993 and then killed in the nearby village of Ovnak. He lost his son Zeljko that day too.

"He was 23. He was not killed [while fighting] on the frontline, but while he was trying to flee from the village," Anto said.

Friar Ivo Markovic, a professor at the Franciscan School of Theology in Sarajevo who received an award by Tanenbaum Centre for Interreligious Understanding in New York for his work for peace during and after the war, also lost a close relative in Susanj that day - his father, who was killed at the age of 74.

"Four of them were taken to the frontline and shot. One was 85 years old. This was the liquidation of the elderly," said...