PRIJEDOR

According to the official results of the 1991 census, the Prijedor district had 112,470 residents:

6,300 Croats (5,6%)
49,454 Moslems (44,0%)
47,745 Serbs (42,5%)
8,971 others (7,9%)

During the Serbian and former YPA aggression against Croatia (1991) the aggressor turned the Prijedor district into a logistic and transit centre. The majority of the military capable Serb residents were armed by the former YPA, and set off to military campaigns throughout Croatia (Novska, Lipik, Pakrac, Nova Gradiska, Sunja, Petrinja...). On April 30th 1992, the legally elected district authority in Prijedor was forcibly overthrown, and the so-called Serbian district of Prijedor was established.

On May 22nd 1992, the Serb occupying forces and the former YPA initially attacked this non-Serb populated district. First they attacked the Moslem populated village of Hambarine, and then followed:

May 23rd 1992 - Croat populated villages of Gornji Volar and Stara Rijeka;
May 24th 1992 - the Serb forces attacked the mining town of Ljubija;
May 25th 1992 - the village of Kozarac came under attack;
May 27th 1992 - Croat populated villages of Raljas, Brisevo and Stara Rijeka came under attack;
May 31st 1992 - non-Serb residents of the city of Prijedor came under the attack of the Serb forces.

In the period between May 23rd and 26th the occupying Serb forces turned the already existing industrial plants into camps, where they detained many surviving Croat and Moslem district residents. Larger camps such as Keraterm, Trnopolje and Omarska became the execution sites where the brutal physical maltreatment and monstrous mass murders of Croat and Moslem civilian prisoners were carried out. Based on the surviving prisoners' accounts the number of the prisoners that were murdered in those camps has been presumed to exceed 5,000.

Mass murders of non-Serb civilian prisoners were as follows:

May 23rd 1992 - Moslem villagers of Hambarine;
May 25th 1992 - Moslem and Croat villagers of Kozarac;
May 31st to June 5th 1992 - non-Serb residents of Prijedor;
July 18th to 22nd 1992 - Moslem villagers of Biscani, Rizvanovici, Rakovcani, Hambarine and Zecovi;
July 24th/25th 1992 - Croat villagers of Stara Rijeka, Brisevo and Raljas;
September 12th/13th 1992 - Croat villagers of Gornji Volar;
November 7th/8th 1992 - Croat villagers of Gornja Ravska;
April 24th 1993 - Croat villagers of Gornji Volar;
April 1994 - non-Serb residents of Prijedor.

Bodies of murdered Croat and Moslem civilians were buried in ten or more mass graves located in the Prijedor district. In the first year of the occupation (May 1992 to May 1993), Serbs evicted and/or killed some 54,000 residents (3,131 Croats, 43,330 Moslems and 7,340 others). The Serbian aggressor destroyed the entire villages, towns and sections of the cities in the Prijedor district area, populated by Croat and Moslem civilians, as well as the entire non-Serb sacral, cultural and historic heritage.

The ethnic cleansing of the non-Serb population in the area has still been carried out (1994).