Prof. Ph.D. RASIM MURATOVIĆ, scientific advisor
Asst. Ph.D. ERMIN KUKA, senior research associate
The most notorious camp for the civilian population from the Brčko area was the Luka camp, where Serbs committed the most serious crimes. Camp Luka was named after the pre-war river port on the banks of the Sava River. That port was the largest pre-war river port in Bosnia and Herzegovina, both in terms of the amount of transported goods and in terms of infrastructure facilities and hangars at its disposal.
According to the Report of Tadeusz Mazowiecki on the state of human rights in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, it is stated that during May and June 1992, members of the VRS killed between 2,000 and 3,000 civilians of Brčko, mostly Bosniaks - men, women and children.
The Luka camp was opened on May 7, 1992, and according to available data, it was closed on July 9, 1992. Inmates slept there on pieces of paper and on the concrete itself, in extremely inhumane conditions. During the middle of 1992, the cries of imprisoned civilians and constant gunshots could be heard in the camp every day, and the Serbs threw the corpses of those killed, mostly Bosniaks, into the Sava River. The transport of the other bodies to the mass graves, which were thrown out from the back of the Luka facility, was carried out by trucks from RO "Bimeks".
Dozens and even hundreds of civilians were taken to be shot every night. All of them were killed in an extremely cruel and brutal manner. In addition to the act of shooting, murders in the camp were also carried out by "slaughtering people over a shaft or hitting them with an iron bar". According to the available data, over 1,500 people were killed in Brčko only in the period "from May 5 to May 25, 1992".
The witness of those crimes says:
“I remember, it was Sunday, May 10. That day they brought lambs, kids and alcohol looted from stores. They ate and drank all day. They entered the hangar twice. The first time they entered, they counted from one to three, with the first and third going out and the second staying, and the second time they came, they took every third out. All who came out were killed. They then singled out two to remove the corpses, then they would kill them too, and then two more - and then kill them again. They repeated this three nights in a row. It was the bloodiest period in Luka. Then they killed hundreds of people."
One of the main commanders of the Luka camp was Goran Jelisić aka Adolf, who was sentenced by the Hague Tribunal to 40 years in prison for murder, cruel acts of robbery (violations of the laws and customs of war) and inhumane acts (crimes against humanity). According to the verdict of the Trial Chamber, Goran Jelisić every day "from approximately May 7 to the beginning of July 1992, often assisted by camp guards, came to the main hangar of the Luka camp where most of the detainees were kept, selected them for interrogation, and then beat and often killed them." In addition to Jelisić, torture and killings in the Luka camp were carried out by Ranko Češić, Rajko Rajčić, and Monika (Bore) Ilić, a monster girl who "killed people by pulling out their entrails with a broken bottle".
In 1992, Monika was only 17 years old, and she was Jelisić's main "assistant" in killing and torturing innocent civilians. At the beginning of May 1992, Monika, together with Goran Jelisić, "brought a group of unarmed Brčak people in front of the collapsed Sava bridge to shoot them.... This duo opened fire with automatic rifles". The only survivor was Dževad Mujkić, who was wounded and swam across the Sava and came to the Republic of Croatia, and then to the free territory of Brc. Mujkić died "on the 20 May 1993, as a fighter of the 3rd battalion, 108th mtbr."
By the way, Goran Jelisić himself boasted that he had killed 175 Bosniaks, and that he had to kill another 25 in order to reach the figure of 200 killed, and the criminal Rajko Rajčić boasted that he had made a special knife for slaughtering Bosniaks.
According to the testimony of Osman ef. Kavazović, the pre-war imam of the Azizija mosque in Brezovo Polje, Goran Jelisić, on the night of May 15, 1992, was in the administration of the Luka concentration camp, entering the office where the ef. Kavazović said: "This was my 83rd killed so far... I thought I would be the 84th... Then Goran told me: 'Let's play Russian roulette...' He put a gun to my chest . I thought that the end of my life had come and I studied the kelim and shahadat in myself. I asked Allah that my death be with faith and faith... Fortunately, the bullet did not fire..." Efendi Kavazović was offered to leave Luka freely, which he refused, saying that he wanted to stay and share the fate of the (several hundred) camp residents from Brezovo Polje. He remained in the Luka camp until the closing of the camp (July 9, 1992), from where all the inmates were taken to the Batković concentration camp, where ef. Kavazović was until October 13, 1992.
One of the witnesses of the torture and crimes in the Luka camp, which were mostly committed by Jelisić and Monika against civilians of non-Serb nationality in Brc, says:
"I was beaten the most by Goran Jelisić, but I was alternately beaten by some Ivan, then Ilija from Bar and policeman Dragan from Brčko, whom I knew before. Together with me, they also beat Andrija Tufekčić from Brezik. They beat us with snot nozzles and thick black cables. They also brought Doctor Belog (Milenko Vojinović, president of the SDS Brčko, op.a.) to see how long we could endure. They beat us all night. After we lost consciousness, they covered us with some sheets thinking that we had died. Our heads were swollen, our noses were crooked, our faces were disfigured, and our ears were bigger than our fists. Monika came up and discovered us. When she found out we were alive, she spilled acid on us. It stung us terribly, because we were already in the wounds."
In addition to the above, among the main monsters in the Luka camp was Ljubiša Savić aka Mauser. He boasted that "in Pančevo, he graduated from the school of torture, specializing in slaughtering and amputation of organs". Furthermore, he claimed that "in his hands, even the mute must speak", that in the Luka camp he held "training for the slaughter of camp inmates", and that "when he was timed, he slaughtered 17 detainees in one minute and that in Luka he slaughtered on hundreds of bales".
The camp inmates who were physically and mentally abused and tortured by the Serbs were brought out to the hangars of the camp where they were slaughtered or killed with pistol shots. Mass slaughters were also carried out on June 12, 1992 (the second day of the great Muslim holiday of Kurban Bayram). According to the statement of one of the captured Chetniks, who at that time was the on-duty butcher in the Luka camp, he himself killed over 80 people (unreliable testimony) by stabbing a knife under the temple or hitting the head with a hammer.
In the Luka camp, a large number of Bosniak women and girls were subjected to sexual violence. Girls and women between the ages of 13 and 60 were raped. And it was not about rape out of lust, but about "Greater Serbia's production of the need to dishonor a nation, humiliate its female gender, counting on the production of deep and permanent collective trauma due to the sensitivity of Muslim family ethics to this form of humiliation".
One of the raped women in the Luka camp (S.V.) says:
"I was raped several times and in several places, mainly because I didn't want to reveal to them where I was hiding money and other valuables. Immediately after the occupation of the city, I was raped in my house in the settlement of Grčica. Dragan and Zoran did it. Zoran was from Paraćin in Serbia. I was beaten before. After that I was raped in the Luka camp. Konstantin Simonović, then the commander of the camp, raped me there. He raped me in his office, where I was serving coffee. His office was full of knives, scissors, electric cables, batons and other means of torture. In the Luka camp, I was also raped by a soldier from Serbia, who was called Dugi."
On May 18, 1992, command control over the Luka camp was taken over by the Public Security Service (SJB) from Brc, which dismissed Goran Jelisić and appointed the rapist Konstantin Simonović in his place. He continued where Goran Jelisić left off with committing crimes and mass torture of civilians in the Luka camp.
It should be emphasized that the Luka concentration camp in Brčko was never visited by any of the delegations of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The non-arrival in this camp was justified by the international community by saying that "on the 18 On May 1992, the representative of the ICRC, Frederic Maurice, was killed in an attack on the humanitarian convoy of the ICRC in Sarajevo"100, which is why they temporarily withdrew their representatives from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Luka concentration camp was closed on July 9, 1992, and all the inmates were taken to the Batković concentration camp near Bijeljina.
Source:
Rasim Muratović and Ermin Kuka (2015). Genocide in Brčko 1992-1995. Sarajevo: Institute for Research on Crimes against Humanity and International Law, University of Sarajevo.