Bosnian law does not provide for a special procedure for the burial of persons convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The remains are handed over to the family, as in any other case. However, it is at this point that the question arises – what happens when a grave ceases to be a place of private remembrance […]

In legal proceedings concerning war crimes, forensic psychiatry is not concerned with explaining the acts themselves or the moral nature of the accused, but exclusively with assessing their sanity and mental state. However, the question of whether perpetrators of crimes are evil by nature or simply ordinary people influenced by social circumstances and authority remains a key theme that links […]

The Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina is frequently a ”hostage” of a complex political system, in which the lack of budget funds is directly prolonging the agony of families that have been waiting to find the mortal remains of their family members for decades.  Author: Zinaida Đelilović More than 7,500 persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina are still […]

In broader policy and institutional discussions, including contemporary security debates, transitional justice is frequently framed primarily as a legal or ethical response to past atrocities, rather than also being recognised as a strategic tool for long-term security and the prevention of future conflict. Yet experience from post-conflict and transitional societies increasingly demonstrates that transitional justice also functions as a forward-looking, […]

Bosnia and Herzegovina has different regional identities – persons from Krajina, Herzegovina, Sarajevo, etc., and people from Podrinje region. Every of these identities implies its own dialect, accent, customs and other characteristics. Women from Eastern Bosnia are characterised by their firm stance, emotional strength and an exceptional ability to view the world from a deep and emphatic perspective.      Ever […]

Back in 1892, the Austro-Hungarian authorities started constructing a hospital specialised in bone and joint diseases in the southern part of the country, more specifically in Stolac. The reason for choosing this particular town was its climate, which is conducive to treating these conditions. The hospital was completed in 1897. It served its purpose and was available for treatment to […]

The Hospital for Skeletal Diseases in Stolac was repurposed in the summer of 1993. Back then, one of the darkest chapters of the war history of Bosnia and Herzegovina started. Usually, it is the most innocent ones who pay the highest price for the madness of persons that target others for being different and consider them enemies for this reason. […]

Concentration camp survivors, women victims of conflict-related violence, children that survived war trauma – all conflict-related victims who were not members of armed forces and who live or lived in Republika Srpska during the war should be protected, without any discrimination based on their ethnicity or gender. These are provisions of the Law on the Protection of War Torture Victims […]

Monetary reparations by state institutions are not the end, but rather the beginning of the process of facing the past. They are an acknowledgment of wounds, but do not heal them. The families of victims request acknowledgment, truth and dignity. And that the crimes may never be repeated against anyone. Author: Sanela Karaica Demir Ličina from Bijelo Polje had waited […]

Day of Youth, one of the more important holidays in the former Yugoslavia was forgotten and marked by a different narrative on May 25, 1995. The massacre at Tuzlanska Kapija is an event that changed the collective memory of this day. The Relay of Youth, a relay race held in the honour of Tito slowly became a distant memory, and […]

Heliodrom, a heliport that was used as a concentration camp and controlled by the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), was a place of detention of around 8000 inhabitants of Mostar during the last war. A discussion about turning this space into a museum dedicated to the Croatian Defence Council has been ongoing for quite some time, which is nothing else but […]

Author: Edvin Kanka Ćudić All difficulties faced by the post-war Bosnian and Herzegovinian society result from its failure to face the past. The deeply divided community in political and administrative terms is an advantage for officials using politics, media, but also education to make the process of facing war crimes more complicated, given the fact that they see the process […]