Bosnians Mark Day of Remembrance for Women Killed in War

09.12.2022

Commemoration on Friday of women killed in the war in Prijedor. Photo: Kvart Youth Centre. Bosnians Mark Day of Remembrance for Women Killed in WarAzem KurticSarajevoBIRNDecember 8, 202216:34 Azem KurticSarajevoBIRNDecember 8, 202216:34Activists took to the streets to mark an unofficial day of remembrance for around 9,900 women who were killed in the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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Holding up pieces of paper with the names and ages of women who were killed during the war, local activists in the northern city of Prijedor marked the unofficial Day of Remembrance of Women in the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday.

According to the activists, 266 women, including ten girls, were killed during the 1992-95 war in Prijedor. The remains of 84 of them have yet to be found.

Branko Culibrk from Kvart Youth Centre, one of the organisers of the event, said that Thursday’s commemoration is part of attempts to face up to the past.

“The way we treat the past is the way we will look to the future,” Culibrk told BIRN.

“According to the data in the Bosnian Book of the Dead, 9,901 women were killed in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is 10.31 per cent of the total number of victims of the war and 25 per cent of the civilian victims of the war,” the Peace with a Female Face group said in a statement.

Initiatives to declare December 8 the official Day of Remembrance of Women in the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been sent to parliament on two occasions, in 2014 and 2016, but so far, institutional support has been lacking.

December 8 was also commemorated in 11 other towns and cities in Bosnia, as part of the annual global campaign 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.