Sivac, Nusreta

Nusreta Sivac was born on February 18, 1951 in the Bosnian Priedor , then part of Yugoslavia , where she graduated from high school and studied law ^[1] . Sivac worked as a judge from 1978 to 1992, when the Bosnian war broke out ^[2] .

In April 1992, Serbian soldiers informed her that she was no longer working in the Municipal Court of Priedor. The Bosnians and Croats who lived in Priedor were forced to wear white blindfolds and hang white flags at the windows of their houses. Their houses were looted and burned while the Serbs transported them to the concentration camps of Keraterm , Omarska and Trnopolje . Two months after the Bosnian Serb Army of the Republika Srpska took control of Priedor, she was asked to report to the local police station under the pretext of interrogation; however, upon arrival, she and 25 other women ^[3] were taken to the Omarska concentration camp. She was among 36 other women and 3,500 men who were detained there ^[4] .

For three months, she and other women were raped, beaten and tortured in a concentration camp ^[3] . She recalled that the worst “were the nights for women, because the guards came into the rooms and took us somewhere to the camp and raped us. This happened regularly ” ^[4] . During her stay, she was forced to remove traces of blood from the interrogation room ^[5] . She noted that she had seen the bodies of those killed by the Serbs on the grass in front of the White House, where the most terrible tortures were carried out. According to her testimony, the dead were put into trucks and taken away somewhere. Also, according to her, people in the Omarsk concentration camp died mostly from torture ^[4] .

In early August 1992, the camp was visited by representatives of the Red Cross and the European press, after which it was closed ^[4] . Five women did not survive in the concentration camp ^[3] . Sivac noted that the remains of four of them were later found in the mass grave, and the remains of the fifth have not yet been discovered ^[4] . She also lamented the absence of a memorial to the victims of the concentration camp, while Priedor’s schools celebrate May 24, the opening day of the nearby concentration camp, Trnopolje ^[3] . In the area of ​​Priedor, 56 mass graves were found, as well as human remains in 357 different places ^[6] .

After her release, Sivac fled to neighboring Croatia, where she, along with Croatian Jadranka Ziegel , also a former prisoner of the Omarska concentration camp, began collecting evidence of hundreds of rape victims ^[5] . She also joined the Women's Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina , whose headquarters were located in Zagreb ^[2] . In June 1995, they assisted in the preparation of the first indictment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The accumulated evidence revealed the severity of rape in wartime and is considered by the United Nations (UN) as a major “turning point” in recognizing them as a war crime ^[5] . She personally testified at the ICTY ^[4] and helped put in prison a man who repeatedly raped her in the Omarsk concentration camp. Sivac also testified in many other cases, including the case of Radovan Karadzic , president of the self-proclaimed Republika Srpska ^[5] .

In 1997, Nusreta Sivac and Jadranka Ziegel became the main characters in the documentary “ Calling the Spirits ”, which tells about their life in the Omarsk concentration camp ^[7] . The film’s premiere was sponsored by Amnesty International , the Coalition for International Justice, the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, and the Bosnian branch of Women for Women international organization ^[8] .

In 1999, Sivac returned to Priedor ^[9] . In 2000, the Federal District Court of the Southern District of New York ordered Radovan Karadzic to pay $ 745 million in compensation to Sivats, Ziegel, and nine other other women ^[10] . In the summer of 2002, Sivac conquered and bought an apartment from which she was expelled during the war. The room was occupied, and her property was looted by a former colleague. After her return, the word "Omarska" was repeatedly written on the door of her apartment ^{[3] [11]} . Sivac was not able to reinstate in the work that she had before the war ^[11] . In 2003, Sivac and even more than a hundred other survivors and relatives of the victims of the Omarsk concentration camp held their first commemoration ceremony ^[12] . In 2005, Sivac was among the thousands of women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize ^[13] . In 2008, she supported the possibility of creating a regional war crimes court, saying that “there are some obstacles that really need to be ruled out because extraditions are not allowed in the constitutions of the states of the region, etc. The local judicial system should be better prepared, more numerous. Of course, there should be more leaders and judges ” ^[14] .

In 2012, Nusreta Sivac commented on the denial of war crimes in Priedor as follows: “The current Serbian authorities in Priedor are constantly trying to erase part of the story between 1992 and 1995 and create a situation that is not written and talked about. It hurts us the most. This part of the story belongs to us, the citizens of Priedor, and we will never forget and will not allow to forget it because of the civilians killed here ” ^[15] .

• I Came to Testify (unspecified) . Women, War, and Peace . PBS (October 11, 2011).
• Orentlicher, Diane. Sexual Assault Issues Before the War Crimes Tribunal // Human Rights Brief: journal. - 1997. - Vol. 4 . - P. 8-9 .
• Sivac, Nusreta Nusreta Sivac's Voice (Neopr.) . Durban Review Conference . Geneva: United Nations (April 24, 2009).
• Vulliamy, Ed . 'We Can't Forget' , The Guardian (September 1, 2004).
• " When Everyone is Silent: Reparation for Survivors of Wartime Rape in Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina" , Amnesty International , October 31, 2012, EUR 63/012/2012 , < https://www.amnesty.org/en/ documents / eur63 / 012/2012 / en / >