Trnopolje | |
---|---|
Concentration camp | |
Coordinates | 44°56′02.2″N 16°48′14.8″E / 44.933944°N 16.804111°E |
Location | Near Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
Operated by | Bosnian Serb military and police authorities |
Original use | Primary school |
Operational | May – November 1992 |
Inmates | Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats |
Number of inmates | c. 30,000 |
Killed | 90 |
The Trnopolje camp was an internment camp established by Republika Srpska military and police authorities in the village of Trnopolje near Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the first months of the Bosnian War. Also variously termed a concentration camp, detainment camp, detention camp, prison, and ghetto, Trnopolje held between 4,000 and 7,000 Bosniak and Bosnian Croat inmates at any one time and served as a staging area for mass deportations, mainly of women, children, and elderly men. Between May and November 1992, an estimated 30,000 inmates passed through. Mistreatment was widespread and there were numerous instances of torture, rape, and killing; ninety inmates died.
In August 1992, the existence of the Prijedor camps was discovered by the Western media, leading to their closure. Trnopolje was transferred into the hands of the International Red Cross (IRC) in mid-August, and closed in November 1992. After the war, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted several Bosnian Serb officials of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in the camp, but ruled that the abuses perpetrated in Prijedor did not constitute genocide. Crimes in Trnopolje were also listed in the ICTY's indictment of former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, who died mid-trial in March 2006.
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