| Foča ethnic cleansing | |
|---|---|
 Chart showing exhumations carried out between 1996 and 2000 in the Foča municipality, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Image provided courtesy of the ICTY) | |
  Foča Foča (Bosnia and Herzegovina) | |
| Location | Foča,Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Date | 7 April 1992 to January 1994 |
| Target | Bosniaks |
Attack type | Genocide,ethnic cleansing,population transfer,genocidal rape |
| Deaths | 2,707[1] |
| Perpetrators | Serb forces |
| Motive | Anti-Bosniak sentiment,Serbianisation,Greater Serbia |
There was a campaign ofethnic cleansing in the area of the town ofFoča committed bySerbmilitary,police, andparamilitary forces onBosniakcivilians from 7 April 1992 to January 1994 during theBosnian War. By one estimate, around 21,000 non-Serbs left Foča after July 1992.[2]
In numerousverdicts, theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ruled that theethnic cleansing (all Bosniaks were expelled), killings, massrapes, and the deliberatedestruction of Bosniakproperty and cultural sites constitutedcrimes against humanity. According to theResearch and Documentation Center (IDC), 2,707 people were killed or went missing in the Foča municipality during the war. Among them were 1,513 Bosniak civilians and 155 Serb civilians.[1] Additionally, Bosnian Serb authorities set up locations, commonly described asrape camps, in which hundreds of women were raped.[3][4] Numerous Serb officers, soldiers and other participants in the Foča massacres were accused and convicted of war crimes by the ICTY.
At the outset of theBosnian War, Serb forces attacked the non-Serb civilian population in EasternBosnia. Once towns and villages were securely in their hands, Serb forces—i.e. themilitary, thepolice, the paramilitaries and, sometimes, even Serb villagers—applied the same pattern: Bosniak houses and apartments were systematically ransacked or burnt down while Bosniak civilians were rounded up or captured and, sometimes, beaten or killed in the process. Men and women were separated, with many of the men detained in local camps.[4]
TheRepublika Srpska authorities held some Bosniaks in concentration camps in Foča before they were systematically executed.[5]
Thirteen mosques including theAladža Mosque were destroyed and the 22,500 Bosniaks who made up the majority of inhabitants fled.[6] Only about 10 Bosniaks remained at the end of the conflict.[7] In January 1994, the Serb authorities renamed Foča "Srbinje" (Serbian:Србиње), meaning "place of the Serbs" (fromSrbi Serbs and-nje which is a Slavic locative suffix). In 2004, theConstitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared the name change unconstitutional, and reverted it back to Foča.
Those that managed to escape the ethnic cleansing settled in the city ofRožaje until the war ended.
Bosniak women were kept in various detention centres where they lived in unhygienic conditions and were mistreated in many ways, including being repeatedly raped. Serbian soldiers or policemen would come to these detention centres, select one or more women, take them out and rape them. All this was done in full view, in complete knowledge and often with the direct involvement of the Serbianlocal authorities, particularly the police forces. The head of Foča police forces, Dragan Gagović, was personally identified as one of the men who came to these detention centres to take women out and rape them. There were numerous rape camps in Foča. "Karaman's house" was one of the most notorious rape camps. The women kept in this house were raped repeatedly. Among the women held in "Karaman's house" were minors as young as 12 years of age.[4]
Bosniak women were raped by the Serbs as part of a methodical and concentrated campaign of ethnic cleansing. For instance, the girls and women selected by the later convictedwar criminal Dragoljub Kunarac or by his men, were systematically taken to the soldiers' base, a house located inOsman Đikić street number 16. There, the women and girls (some as young as 14) were repeatedly raped. Serb soldiers regularly took Muslim girls from various detention centres and kept them assex slaves.[4]
Radomir Kovač, who was also convicted byICTY, kept four Bosniak Muslim girls in his apartment, sexually abusing and repeatedly raping them. Kovač would also invite friends to his home and allow them to rape the girls. Kovač also sold three of the girls; prior to selling them, he gave two of the girls to other Serb soldiers who gang raped them for more than three weeks. The girls were then taken back to Kovač, who immediately sold one and gave the other away as a present to his friend.[4]
The ICTY found that the Serb forces were guilty ofpersecutions,torture,murder,rape andenslavement (crimes against humanity)as well as cruel treatment (violations oflaw of war):
Dragan Gagović and Janko Janjić were indicted by the ICTY but got killed by SFOR in 1999 and 2000, respectively.[16]
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