Eid al-Adha in Bosnia and Herzegovina is commemorated under the shadow of wartime experiences. Witness statements and court rulings show that during the 1992-1995 war, the holiday days were marked by attacks, detentions, torture, and losses for some Bosniak civilians.
Elvedin Pasic, from the village of Hrvacani in the north of the country, was only 14 years old when he went to the mosque on June 11, 1992, the first day of Eid al-Adha. Pasic recalled expecting to receive holiday money from elders with childhood excitement, but the next day neighbors launched an attack.
Pasic took shelter in a basement as shells fell on the village, then had to flee. In his 2012 testimony at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, he said civilians were trapped for a while in an uncontrolled area, trying to escape by moving from village to village. When they returned weeks later, their homes were burned and their dogs shot.
Pasic later survived a massacre carried out by Bosnian Serb forces in the village of Grabovica but was captured and separated from his father, whom he never saw again.
Raid on Eid Morning in Kotor Varos
Munevera Avdic, living in Kotor Varos in northern Bosnia, also recalled the night of June 11, 1992. Avdic said tank mines were placed on the Vrbanja Bridge, and while her husband and neighbors were preparing for Eid prayer, they suddenly turned back as the war began.
According to Avdic, no prayer was held that morning. Panic spread, and she fled to the forest with her three children, only returning occasionally to get food. When her family returned, tanks and armored vehicles had entered the area.
Avdic recounted that her husband and more than twenty others were taken on June 25, supposedly to a meeting. She was at home with her children at the time, hid under the stairs when gunfire started, and said her husband was killed in front of the hospital.
According to rulings by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, a group of Bosniaks taken from the Kotor settlement of Kotor Varos on June 25, 1992, were beaten, insulted, robbed, and six were killed by Bosnian Serb paramilitaries. The rulings also concluded that at least 26 Bosniak men were killed on the road from the settlement to the health center and in front of the center.
In 2024, the Bosnian court sentenced former police officers Dusko Vujicic and Dusko Maksimovic to six years and one and a half years in prison respectively for mistreatment of detainees. In the same case, Savo Tepic and Ilija Kurusic were acquitted. Judges noted that numerous witnesses confirmed the detention and arrest of non-Bosniak civilians in Kotor Varos from June 11, 1992.
Torture and Sexual Violence in Celopek
In the Zvornik area of eastern Bosnia, especially at the Celopek Cultural Center, Eid al-Adha 1992 is remembered for torture and sexual violence against Bosniaks. The mistreatment began with the arrival of a paramilitary group called the Yellow Wild Bees, led by two brothers known as 'Repic' and 'Zuco'.
A 2016 court ruling stated that on June 11, 1992, during the Muslim holiday, Repic came to the Cultural Center and one of his men beat a detainee to death. The ruling detailed that Repic then forced all detainees to strip, compelled them to engage in sexual acts with each other, and forced some to be raped with broom handles.
The ruling also noted that paramilitary members participated in these abuses, some detainees had their fingers cut off, crosses were carved on their foreheads and backs with handmade curved knives, and several men were killed by these methods. A former detainee previously testified that Repic made lists that day, separating fathers, sons, and brothers.
Witnesses said detainees were brought onto the stage of the cultural center while others were forced to watch. The same witness said Repic shot six or seven detainees in the head with a small rifle, killing them. Two prisoners were forced to load the bodies onto a truck, and one was left inside the vehicle; this person's remains were found in a mass grave in the Crni Vrh area in 2003.
Hundreds of human remains were exhumed in the Crni Vrh area that year, including those killed at the Celopek Cultural Center.
Fear Cast Over Eid Days in Svrake and Hadzici
Eset Muracevic recounted being exposed to tear gas during Eid al-Adha 1992. Along with hundreds of people from Svrake near Sarajevo, he was taken first to a Yugoslav People's Army barracks, then to a concrete structure known locally as a 'bunker' dating from World War II.
According to witnesses in Bosnian trials, about 40 detainees were inside when a gas bomb was thrown in. Muracevic said it felt like a 'holiday message' to them.
He described how smoke lingered in the confined space, making breathing difficult due to heat. As detainees moved toward ventilation openings for fresh air, the smoke remained trapped inside. He spent seven months there, witnessing physical and psychological torture, starvation, and sexual assaults on female detainees.
International Criminal Tribunal rulings revealed detainees in this bunker were forced into hard labor like digging trenches, and women were sexually abused in nearby facilities and Bosnian Serb front-line positions. Branko Vlaco was sentenced in 2015 and Jovan Tintor in 2019 for various crimes related to these abuses.
Senaid Stupar, held at the Hadzici Culture and Sports Center, said he slept on a bare floor and received only one meal a day during Eid al-Adha 1992. On the second day of the holiday, June 12, 10 to 15 paramilitary members arrived, including a man named Goran.
