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Int'l Business Times
17-06-2025
- Int'l Business Times
Survivors Of Bosnia 'Rape Camps' Come Forward 30 Years On
It took years for Zehra Murguz to be able to testify about what happened to her and other Muslim women in the "rape camps" run by Serb forces during the war in Bosnia. One of the awful memories that drove her to give evidence was of seeing a girl of 12 "with a doll in her arms" dragged into one of them. Murguz felt she was also speaking "in the name of all the others, of that girl of 12 who will never talk... who was never found". The horror began for her in the summer of 1992 when Serb forces took the mountain town of Foca and Murguz was taken to the Partizan gym, one of several notorious rape camps the Serbs ran. For months dozens of Muslim women and girls were gang raped and forced into sexual slavery there. Others were sold or killed. At least 20,000 people suffered sexual violence across Bosnia as Yugoslavia collapsed into the worst war Europe had then seen since 1945. Most victims were Bosnian Muslims, but Serbs and Croat women also suffered. In 2001 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia became the first court in Europe to recognise rape as a crime against humanity in an historic verdict against three Bosnian Serb army officers from Foca. While a handful of survivors driven by a thirst for justice continue to collect thousands of testimonies, many remain locked in silence more than three decades on. Murguz, 61, began her judicial journey when she returned to Bosnia in 2011 -- after years living in exile in Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia -- to bring her neighbour to book for raping her during the war. "If I don't speak, it will be as if the crime never happened," she told herself. He was still living in Foca and "wasn't hiding", she said. He was arrested and tried in the local court in 2012. Going there was "like going back to 1992", to the "agony" of that time, Murguz recalled. "I came face to face with him, we looked each other in the eye, and justice won out," she said. The man was jailed for 14 years, a "light sentence", said Murguz "for the murder of three people and a rape". But the conviction at last "stamped him with his true identity -- war criminal", she told AFP from a sewing workshop in Sarajevo run by the Victims of the War Foca 1992-1995 group. Around her other survivors wove fabric together, a form of collective therapy. "To this day, only 18 verdicts have been delivered for crimes of sexual violence committed in Foca," said the group's president, Midheta Kaloper, 52. "Three trials are ongoing. A lot of time has passed, and witnesses are exhausted." She herself was a victim of "an unspeakable, inexplicable crime" in Gorazde, the "worst torture a girl can endure", she said. She still hopes the suspect will be tried in Bosnia, not in Serbia where he now lives. But Kaloper warned that things have "stagnated" over the last five years, with 258 cases involving 2,046 suspects still needing to be judged, according to figures from the High Council of Magistrates. Bosnian judges had tried 773 war crime cases by the end of last year -- over a quarter involving sexual violence -- according to the OSCE monitoring mission. It said there had been "significant delays" in hundreds of others where the suspects have yet to be identified. "What kills us most is the excessive length of these proceedings," said Kaloper. "We have been fighting for 30 years, and our only real success has been obtaining the law on civilian war victims," under which survivors can be given a pension worth about $400 a month, she said. However, the law only covers the Muslim-Croat half of Bosnia and those living there, and not those living in the self-governing Serb Republika Srpska (RS) and the small mixed Brcko District in the northeast, which have different judicial systems. Around 1,000 survivors have obtained war victim status in the Muslim-Croat federation and some 100 more in the RS and Brcko, said Ajna Mahmic, of the Swiss legal NGO Trial International. Rape, she said, still carries a particular stigma. "Unfortunately, as a society we still put the blame and shame on the victims rather than the perpetrators. "Many of the survivors do not feel secure," Mahmic told AFP. "Some of the perpetrators are still living freely and some are working in public institutions," some in positions of authority. Not to mention the continued glorification "of war criminals (in the Balkans) and the minimisation of the suffering we have endured", Kaloper added. Nearly half of ongoing cases are held up because the accused are abroad, an OSCE report said in January. Another "worrying trend is the widespread failure of courts to grant victims compensation" in criminal cases, the OSCE added. While witnesses could testify anonymously in The Hague, there is nothing to protect their identity in civil compensation proceedings in Bosnia. "Even today it is very difficult for victims to speak," said Bakira Hasecic, 71, head of the Women Victims of War group, and they keep the "weight of this tragedy in their hearts". Many follow what their former torturers are up to on social networks. It is an emotional "timebomb that can explode at any moment and drives some to call us", she said. Though over 30 years have passed, 15 more victims stepped forward needing to talk in the last few months alone, Hasecic said. Bakira Hasecic: 'Even today it is very difficult for victims to speak' AFP Stitching her life back together: Zehra Murguz AFP Bosnian rape survivors weave together in a therapy centre in Sarajevo AFP Glorifying guilty men: a monument to Bosnian Serb fighters in Foca AFP
France 24
17-06-2025
- France 24
Survivors of Bosnia 'rape camps' come forward 30 years on
One of the awful memories that drove her to give evidence was of seeing a girl of 12 "with a doll in her arms" dragged into one of them. Murguz felt she was also speaking "in the name of all the others, of that girl of 12 who will never talk... who was never found". The horror began for her in the summer of 1992 when Serb forces took the mountain town of Foca and Murguz was taken to the Partizan gym, one of several notorious rape camps the Serbs ran. For months dozens of Muslim women and girls were gang raped and forced into sexual slavery there. Others were sold or killed. At least 20,000 people suffered sexual violence across Bosnia as Yugoslavia collapsed into the worst war Europe had then seen since 1945. Most victims were Bosnian Muslims, but Serbs and Croat women also suffered. In 2001 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia became the first court in Europe to recognise rape as a crime against humanity in an historic verdict against three Bosnian Serb army officers from Foca. While a handful of survivors driven by a thirst for justice continue to collect thousands of testimonies, many remain locked in silence more than three decades on. Triple murder and rape Murguz, 61, began her judicial journey when she returned to Bosnia in 2011 -- after years living in exile in Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia -- to bring her neighbour to book for raping her during the war. "If I don't speak, it will be as if the crime never happened," she told herself. He was still living in Foca and "wasn't hiding", she said. He was arrested and tried in the local court in 2012. Going there was "like going back to 1992", to the "agony" of that time, Murguz recalled. "I came face to face with him, we looked each other in the eye, and justice won out," she said. The man was jailed for 14 years, a "light sentence", said Murguz "for the murder of three people and a rape". But the conviction at last "stamped him with his true identity -- war criminal", she told AFP from a sewing workshop in Sarajevo run by the Victims of the War Foca 1992-1995 group. Around her other survivors wove fabric together, a form of collective therapy. "To this day, only 18 verdicts have been delivered for crimes of sexual violence committed in Foca," said the group's president, Midheta Kaloper, 52. "Three trials are ongoing. A lot of time has passed, and witnesses are exhausted." She herself was a victim of "an unspeakable, inexplicable crime" in Gorazde, the "worst torture a girl can endure", she said. She still hopes the suspect will be tried in Bosnia, not in Serbia where he now lives. But Kaloper warned that things have "stagnated" over the last five years, with 258 cases involving 2,046 suspects still needing to be judged, according to figures from the High Council of Magistrates. Bosnian judges had tried 773 war crime cases by the end of last year -- over a quarter involving sexual violence -- according to the OSCE monitoring mission. It said there had been "significant delays" in hundreds of others where the suspects have yet to be identified. "What kills us most is the excessive length of these proceedings," said Kaloper. 'Timebomb' "We have been fighting for 30 years, and our only real success has been obtaining the law on civilian war victims," under which survivors can be given a pension worth about $400 a month, she said. However, the law only covers the Muslim-Croat half of Bosnia and those living there, and not those living in the self-governing Serb Republika Srpska (RS) and the small mixed Brcko District in the northeast, which have different judicial systems. Around 1,000 survivors have obtained war victim status in the Muslim-Croat federation and some 100 more in the RS and Brcko, said Ajna Mahmic, of the Swiss legal NGO Trial International. Rape, she said, still carries a particular stigma. "Unfortunately, as a society we still put the blame and shame on the victims rather than the perpetrators. "Many of the survivors do not feel secure," Mahmic told AFP. "Some of the perpetrators are still living freely and some are working in public institutions," some in positions of authority. Not to mention the continued glorification "of war criminals (in the Balkans) and the minimisation of the suffering we have endured", Kaloper added. Nearly half of ongoing cases are held up because the accused are abroad, an OSCE report said in January. Another "worrying trend is the widespread failure of courts to grant victims compensation" in criminal cases, the OSCE added. While witnesses could testify anonymously in The Hague, there is nothing to protect their identity in civil compensation proceedings in Bosnia. "Even today it is very difficult for victims to speak," said Bakira Hasecic, 71, head of the Women Victims of War group, and they keep the "weight of this tragedy in their hearts". Many follow what their former torturers are up to on social networks. It is an emotional "timebomb that can explode at any moment and drives some to call us", she said. Though over 30 years have passed, 15 more victims stepped forward needing to talk in the last few months alone, Hasecic said. © 2025 AFP
New Straits Times
17-06-2025
- New Straits Times
Survivors of Bosnia 'rape camps' come forward 30 years on
Smajilhodzic IT took years for Zehra Murguz to be able to testify about what happened to her and other Muslim women in the "rape camps" run by Serb forces during the war in Bosnia. One of the awful memories that drove her to give evidence was of seeing a girl of 12 "with a doll in her arms" dragged into one of them. Murguz felt she was also speaking "in the name of all the others, of that girl of 12 who will never talk... who was never found." The horror began for her in the summer of 1992 when Serb forces took the mountain town of Foca and Murguz was taken to the Partizan gym, one of several notorious rape camps the Serbs ran. For months dozens of Muslim women and girls were gang raped and forced into sexual slavery there. Others were sold or killed. At least 20,000 people suffered sexual violence across Bosnia as Yugoslavia collapsed into the worst war Europe had then seen since 1945. Most victims were Bosnian Muslims, but Serbs and Croat women also suffered. In 2001 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia became the first court in Europe to recognise rape as a crime against humanity in an historic verdict against three Bosnian Serb army officers from Foca. While a handful of survivors driven by a thirst for justice continue to collect thousands of testimonies, many remain locked in silence more than three decades on. Murguz, 61, began her judicial journey when she returned to Bosnia in 2011 – after years living in exile in Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia – to bring her neighbour to book for raping her during the war. "If I don't speak, it will be as if the crime never happened," she told herself. He was still living in Foca and "wasn't hiding", she said. He was arrested and tried in the local court in 2012. Going there was "like going back to 1992", to the "agony" of that time, Murguz recalled. "I came face to face with him, we looked each other in the eye, and justice won out," she said. The man was jailed for 14 years, a "light sentence", said Murguz "for the murder of three people and a rape." But the conviction at last "stamped him with his true identity – war criminal", she told AFP from a sewing workshop in Sarajevo run by the Victims of the War Foca 1992-1995 group. Around her other survivors wove fabric together, a form of collective therapy. "To this day, only 18 verdicts have been delivered for crimes of sexual violence committed in Foca," said the group's president, Midheta Kaloper, 52. "Three trials are ongoing. A lot of time has passed, and witnesses are exhausted." She herself was a victim of "an unspeakable, inexplicable crime" in Gorazde, the "worst torture a girl can endure", she said. She still hopes the suspect will be tried in Bosnia, not in Serbia where he now lives. But Kaloper warned that things have "stagnated" over the last five years, with 258 cases involving 2,046 suspects still needing to be judged, according to figures from the High Council of Magistrates. Bosnian judges had tried 773 war crime cases by the end of last year – over a quarter involving sexual violence – according to the OSCE monitoring mission. It said there had been "significant delays" in hundreds of others where the suspects have yet to be identified. "What kills us most is the excessive length of these proceedings," said Kaloper. "We have been fighting for 30 years, and our only real success has been obtaining the law on civilian war victims," under which survivors can be given a pension worth about US$400 a month, she said. However, the law only covers the Muslim-Croat half of Bosnia and those living there, and not those living in the self-governing Serb Republika Srpska (RS) and the small mixed Brcko District in the northeast, which have different judicial systems. Around 1,000 survivors have obtained war victim status in the Muslim-Croat federation and some 100 more in the RS and Brcko, said Ajna Mahmic, of the Swiss legal NGO Trial International. Rape, she said, still carries a particular stigma. "Unfortunately, as a society we still put the blame and shame on the victims rather than the perpetrators. "Many of the survivors do not feel secure," Mahmic told AFP. "Some of the perpetrators are still living freely and some are working in public institutions," some in positions of authority. Not to mention the continued glorification "of war criminals (in the Balkans) and the minimisation of the suffering we have endured", Kaloper added. Nearly half of ongoing cases are held up because the accused are abroad, an OSCE report said in January. Another "worrying trend is the widespread failure of courts to grant victims compensation" in criminal cases, the OSCE added. While witnesses could testify anonymously in The Hague, there is nothing to protect their identity in civil compensation proceedings in Bosnia. "Even today it is very difficult for victims to speak," said Bakira Hasecic, 71, head of the Women Victims of War group, and they keep the "weight of this tragedy in their hearts." Many follow what their former torturers are up to on social networks. It is an emotional "timebomb that can explode at any moment and drives some to call us", she said. Though over 30 years have passed, 15 more victims stepped forward needing to talk in the last few months alone, Hasecic said.
Daily Mirror
07-06-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Terrorism police deployed amid violence fears for World Cup qualifier
Tensions are high in Tirana as Albania host Serbia in England's 2026 World Cup qualifying group almost 11 years on from infamous abandonment because of drone carrying flag An estimated 2,000 police officers including an anti terrorism unit are bracing for trouble ahead of Albania and Serbia's World Cup qualifier in Tirana on Saturday night - after their most recent meeting in 2014 was abandoned because of an infamous drone row. The teams are facing off in Group K, the same pool as England, with visiting fans banned from attending the 22,500-capacity Arena Kombetare. But tensions will remain high throughout the weekend after the Serbia squad were escorted to their hotel by armed officers from the RENEA anti-terrorism unit. When the Balkan rivals met for a first time in October 2014, Serbia fans were heard chanting 'Kill the Albanian' before a drone carrying the flag of Great Albania flew over the Partizan stadium in Belgrade with the match still scoreless. It was dragged down by Serbia player Stefan Mitrovic, who was then subsequently surrounded by angry Albania players. From there ugly scenes erupted in the stands, leading to the game being abandoned. Months later the Court of Arbitration for Sport awarded Albania a 3-0 win. Serbia won the reverse fixture but it was held in a high-security bubble and passed off without major incident - despite rioting on the streets beforehand. Now they have been paired together with tonight's game coming under heavy scrutiny - especially since UEFA have awarded the nations joint hosting rights for the 2027 Under-21 Euros because they feel that can help build a relationship between the fierce rivals. And Armand Duka, president of the Albanian Football Federation, called on his compatriots to see the match as a sports event 'where the team gets support and positive energy from the fans to achieve the goal.' 'We want to give the message: let's live it as a sport festivity,' Duka told reporters, adding that Serbia supporters being banned "will contribute to a quieter environment.' He added: 'Players do not bear the burden of history or of the political tensions. They compete on the pitch to win, to give the best for the jersey they represent and, above all, to build the bridge of respect through the game.' Elseid Hysaj, the only member of Albania's present squad who was in the 2014 team, struck a peaceful note too, saying: 'We should be calm and be conscious that we are football players. We are here to please the fans and give our best for the victory.'
Dubai Eye
03-06-2025
- Business
- Dubai Eye
Dubai Basketball wraps up historic debut season following knockout in Belgrade
Despite taking an early lead, Dubai Basketball suffered a 114-97 defeat at the third and final game of the semi-finals at Belgrade Arena against Serbian powerhouse Partizan. Davis Bertans, Klemen Prepelić, and Nate Mason each sank three-pointers within the first four minutes giving Dubai Basketball an early lead, but by the end of the first quarter, Dubai had stormed ahead with a commanding nine-point lead. However, the momentum began to shift in the second quarter. With the backing of a packed home crowd, Partizan tightened their defence and gradually closed the gap, reducing Dubai's lead to just a single point by the end of the third quarter. As the game progressed into the third and fourth quarters, Partizan demonstrated why they are seven-time ABA League champions. Although they surged ahead, Dubai refused to go down without a fight, repeatedly equalising the score and keeping the contest wide open. In the final quarter, Partizan pulled away, scoring an impressive 28 points that widened the gap to 17 and ultimately secured their place in the finals. Dubai, however, walked away with their heads held high, having challenged one of Europe's top basketball teams to the very end. "Throughout the season, we played good basketball. We claimed major wins – including victories over some of the league's giants – and today, we pushed Partizan into a serious battle for a place in the finals," said Dubai Basketball's head coach Jurica Golemac. This season has been nothing short of historic for the first-ever sports club in the country representing the city of Dubai. It has laid the foundation for a legacy in the making, one that is not only transforming the sporting landscape in the country but also supporting the region's presence on the global basketball stage. Dubai Basketball officially set out on their journey in the Adriatic League in September – competing against some of the most prolific teams in Europe. From beating reigning champions Red Star in their opening game to being one of the only teams in the league to beat Partizan twice in their home court, the 2024/25 season was packed with milestones. Reflecting on the season, Golemac said: "We must be satisfied. This was our first season, with 13 new players in total. We were fortunate to have selected not only top-quality athletes but also exceptional people who made this journey smoother." He added that "plans for the future are already underway. In fact, they've been in motion throughout the season. Analysis, planning – it all continues. As they say, the off-season begins tomorrow, and so does our preparation for what comes next". Dubai Basketball's debut has shown that a newly established team can rise to challenge Europe's elite — creating something monumental for the sport, not just in the country, but across the Middle East.
