Dretelj is a place north of the urban area of \u010capljina, upstream on the right bank of the Neretva River. At the entrance to the settlement there was a complex of former JNA military warehouses, located approximately 1,400 metres as the crow flies from the centre of \u010capljina. The complex was situated in a valley between two elevations and consisted of several buildings within an enclosed area: administrative buildings, workshops, garages, and warehouses for storing fuel and lubricants.<\/p>\n
After the takeover of \u010capljina in April 1992, the complex was occupied by Croat-Muslim forces. During the summer of 1992, it was used by members of the HOS and the so-called Army of RBiH under the name \u201cBruno Bu\u0161i\u0107\u201d barracks. The complex was enclosed with barbed wire and, according to witness statements, partly with minefields to prevent the escape of detainees.\nIn this area, from the beginning of May until September 1992, a camp for Serbs from Herzegovina operated. From April 1993 to April 1994, the same complex was used as a Croat camp for Muslims. In the context of the suffering of Serbs from Mostar, \u010capljina and Stolac, the 1992 camp represents a distinct thematic and organisational unit, often referred to in the literature as \u201cDretelj 1\u201d.<\/p>\n
The camp had all the characteristics of an organised system for the detention of civilians. Civilians of Serbian nationality were unlawfully held there, subjected to daily intensive psychological and physical abuse, inhumane and unhygienic living conditions, minimal amounts of food and water, as well as forced labour both inside and outside the complex.\nPrisoners were housed in concrete hangars with small windows and metal doors, without basic living conditions. Witnesses describe summer temperatures inside the hangars reaching up to 40 degrees Celsius, sleeping on concrete or improvised beds, and having to relieve themselves in containers because leaving at night was not permitted.<\/p>\n
A large number of detainees were brought from Mostar via the HOS centre located in the former military clinic. During their arrest and transport they were subjected to organised looting and mistreatment. Upon arrival at the camp, the prisoners were lined up, interrogated, and exposed to threats, insults and intimidation.\nIn the statements of survivors, references to the NDH and Usta\u0161a ideology are frequently mentioned, as well as belittling of the exhumation and burial of victims of the Genocide against Serbs in the NDH during the Second World War \u2014 especially in connection with the exhumation and burial of victims in Prebilovci.<\/p>\n
In the camp, systematic physical torture and humiliation of detainees was carried out. Witnesses described severe beatings, torture with sticks, rifle butts and other objects, carving the letter \u201cU\u201d into bodies, forcing prisoners to sing Usta\u0161a songs, licking shoes and floors, consuming grass, cigarette butts, urine, motor oil and other substances, as well as various forms of sexual abuse.\nMass rapes of women, including elderly women and minors, as well as the sexual abuse of men, forcing them to perform sexual acts on each other, and other forms of humiliation were particularly well documented.<\/p>\n
A particularly severe dimension of the crimes was the abuse and humiliation of women detained in the camp, including physical and psychological violence, as well as the mass rape of female prisoners. Testimonies of survivors indicate that women were subjected to systematic terror, threats and various forms of abuse, which left permanent consequences on their physical and mental health.\nIn this context, the case of Dr. Olga Dra\u0161ko is well known \u2014 her suffering remains one of the symbols of the agony of Serbian civilians and camp inmates. Her fate testifies to the brutality to which Serbian women were exposed in the camps during the war.<\/p>\n
Testimonies show that fear was constantly present among the prisoners. Looking the guards in the eyes was forbidden, and the detainees lived in permanent uncertainty because of daily beatings, threats of execution, and being taken away for forced labour. Many survivors described Dretelj as the hardest camp they had passed through.<\/p>\n
There was also an infirmary in the complex where a doctor worked, whom the prisoners identified as Hranilovi\u0107 from Zagreb and whom they nicknamed \u201cDr. Mengele\u201d among themselves. Witnesses accused him of inhumane treatment of detainees and denial of medical assistance.\nThe best-known case concerns Sa\u0161a Stoli\u0107, a prisoner whom the criminals called \u201cTenkista\u201d (\u201cThe Tankman\u201d). According to the testimonies of multiple witnesses, his appendix was surgically removed without anaesthesia. Visits to the doctor were accompanied by daily and brutal beatings.<\/p>\n
During the existence of the Dretelj camp, murders of detainees were also committed. The best-known case is the murder of Bo\u017eo Balaban from Mostar, a retired flight instructor, who died in the camp on August 2, 1992, after severe beatings. Witnesses described how Balaban was tortured for hours, beaten with sticks, rifle butts and other objects, then returned to the hangar where he died. His remains were identified only in 2010.\nOther victims of Dretelj mentioned include Jovo Pejanovi\u0107 (former commander of the Mostar SUP), Nenad Markovi\u0107, \u0110uro \u0160koro, Evgenije Samard\u017ei\u0107 and other detainees who disappeared or were killed after being tortured.<\/p>\n
A particularly harrowing testimony about the crimes in Dretelj was given by Sofija Balaban (n\u00e9e Janji\u0107, born 1934 in Mostar), the wife of the murdered detainee Bo\u017eo Balaban. As a camp inmate, she was forced to listen to the torture and murder of her husband, carried out by HOS members led by Edib Buljuba\u0161i\u0107. According to testimonies, after the murder she was subjected to additional psychological abuse and humiliation.\nHer testimony is considered one of the most important sources on the system of terror, psychological violence and liquidations in the Dretelj camp. The tragedy of the Balaban family also had a historical dimension of suffering \u2014 Sofija\u2019s father was a victim of the Genocide against Serbs in the NDH during the Second World War, and two of Bo\u017eo\u2019s brothers were also killed in that genocide.<\/p>\n
Among the victims were married couples and entire families. In the available testimonies and documentation, in addition to the Balaban married couple, the case of the Kuzman married couple is mentioned. They were killed in circumstances connected with the camp system and the wider persecution of the Serbian population. Also mentioned is the mistreatment and detention of the four-member Kru\u017eevi\u0107 family from Mostar.\nTheir suffering forms part of a broader pattern of violence directed against Serbian civilians, in which the victims were often elderly people, women, and individuals who had not taken part in armed actions.<\/p>\n
In the testimonies of survivors and court documents, it is stated that control over the camp was held by the HOS, headed by Bla\u017e Kraljevi\u0107. Among the command structures and soldiers present in the camp, the following names are mentioned: Edib Buljuba\u0161i\u0107, Ivan Petru\u0161i\u0107, Mirsad Repak, Miro Hrsti\u0107, Sejo Horozovi\u0107, \u0160ime Martinovi\u0107, Ahmet Makitan, Vinko Primorac and many others.\nIn the verdicts of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a larger number of perpetrators are mentioned, while materials from the Committee for the Collection of Data on Crimes Committed Against Humanity and International Law from Belgrade list 62 different individuals connected with the crimes in the camp.<\/p>\n
In the summer of 1992, cooperation between the HOS and the so-called Army of RBiH in Herzegovina intensified. In Dretelj, a \u201creception and training centre\u201d of the so-called Army of RBiH was also established. The cooperation was formalised by an agreement between Bla\u017e Kraljevi\u0107 and Armin Pohara in August 1992.\nAccording to witness testimonies, members of the so-called Army of RBiH were present in the complex during the period of the most intense crimes against Serbian detainees. It is also stated that Bla\u017e Kraljevi\u0107, as a general, was a member of the General Staff of the so-called Army of RBiH.<\/p>\n
After the murder of Bla\u017e Kraljevi\u0107 by the HVO in Kru\u0161evo on August 9, 1992, a crisis erupted within the HOS and the position of the detainees worsened. Witnesses state that after his death, the prisoners were exposed to new waves of brutal beatings and threats of liquidation.<\/p>\n
Most of the detainees left the camp during August 1992. One group was transferred towards Buna and Mostar, then to the \u0106elovina prison and exchanged near Stolac on August 18, 1992. Another group was handed over to the HVO and transferred to the Grabovina, Ljubu\u0161ki and Rodo\u010d camps.\nThe last four Serbian women were released from the complex on September 21, 1992, which is considered the end of the operation of the Serb camp in Dretelj.<\/p>\n
Based on lists and statements of surviving witnesses, at one point there were up to 200 prisoners in the male hangar and up to 80 women in the female hangar. The majority of detainees were from the areas of Mostar and \u010capljina, as well as from other places in Herzegovina.<\/p>\n
No proceedings have been conducted before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for the crimes committed against Serbs in the city of Mostar.\nBefore the Court of BiH, proceedings were conducted against five individuals for the crime against humanity \u2014 joint criminal enterprise \u2014 involving the holding of civilians in inhumane and unhygienic conditions and subjecting them daily to various forms of physical, psychological and sexual abuse in Mostar and the Dretelj camp (\u010capljina municipality) in 1992.\nFor these crimes, the following were finally convicted:\n\nIvan Zelenika (6 years in prison)\nEdib Buljuba\u0161i\u0107 (6 years)\nIvan Medi\u0107 (7 years)\nMarina Grubi\u0161i\u0107-Fejzi\u0107 (5 years)\n\nSre\u0107ko Herceg was acquitted.\nAdditionally, before the Court of BiH, proceedings were conducted against four individuals for war crimes against the civilian population (rape, infliction of great pain and suffering) in the Dretelj camp (\u010capljina municipality) in 1992. For these crimes, Ivan Medi\u0107 (6 years in prison) and Ton\u0107o Raji\u010d (2 years) were finally convicted, while Miroslav Hrsti\u0107 and Miljenko Nogolica remain unavailable to the judicial authorities of BiH.\nAll those convicted have already served their prison sentences and have been released.<\/p>\n
Two individual verdicts for the Dretelj camp were handed down abroad.\nFor war crimes against Serbs in the Dretelj camp, in the first war crimes trial in Norway since the Second World War, Mirsad Repak, a former member of the HOS, was sentenced in Oslo in March 2010 to five years in prison.\nFor war crimes \u2014 or more precisely for beating, humiliation and sexual abuse of Serbian prisoners between May and August 1992 in the Dretelj camp \u2014 Ahmet Makitan, known as Maks, was convicted. He was mentioned by a large number of former camp inmates in their statements for the brutality of the torture he inflicted. The court in Stockholm, Sweden, sentenced him \u2014 as a Swedish citizen and former member of the HOS \u2014 to five years in prison. The verdict states that he was also responsible for the murder of two detainees.<\/p>\n
It is evident that the overall scope of the verdicts related to Dretelj does not correspond to the scale and extent of the abuse and murders of Serbian camp inmates that took place in this camp.\nThe Dretelj camp has remained remembered as one of the largest and most severe sites of suffering for Serbs in the Croat-Muslim camp system in Herzegovina during the 1992 war in BiH.<\/p>\n