Mostar’s Mass Graves: Unpunished Atrocities of the Bosnian War

Omer and Tidza Hasic were among scores of civilians whose bodies were found in two mass graves at the Uborak city dump and the Sutina cemetery in Mostar in June and August 1992.

Many Bosniaks and Croats who lived in settlements outside Mostar were taken away from their homes by Serb fighters in the early summer of 1992. The captives were detained in locker rooms at the FK Lokomotiva Mostar football stadium in Vrapcici, and taken for questioning in buildings at the Sutina cemetery, where they were also held in detention.

The bodies of 114 of Bosniaks and Croats were found in the two mass graves, but nearly three decades later, no one has yet been brought to justice for their murders.

'They kept on shooting'

Redzep Karisik, who survived a mass shooting at the Uborak landfill in Mostar. Photo: BIRN.

Hasic's neighbour Redzep Karisik, survived the shooting at the Uborak landfill in June 1992.

Karisik said that on June 9, 1992 he was taken to a locker room at FK Lokomotiva Mostar, where 32 other Bosniaks were already being detained. He also heard that on the previous day, 40 Croat civilians had been taken away from the stadium to the town of Bileca in order to be handed over as part of a prisoner exchange.

He said was kept in the locker room until the night of June 13-14, when a minivan transported him and between 20 and 30 other detainees to Uborak.

When the minivan stopped and the back door opened, their captors opened fire, Karisik recalled. "They kept on shooting, asking: 'Is there anyone else?' 'There is,' I said. 'Come out.' 'I can't. I can't, I've fallen down.'"

He was paralysed by fear. "I saw them kill people there and I fell to my knees. I stood up two or three times. 'Kill me right away,...