Prijedor

"In the last few days, we have witnessed the hypocrisy of the great powers. Today we were on Petrovaka cesta, in that saddest column, no one will talk about it. They will never tell you that it is the biggest ethnic cleansing since 1945 on this soil. They will never say that it was a crime of ethnic cleansing. They were all people, they have a heart and a soul.

Bosnians gathered in central Prijedor on Wednesday for the annual 'White Ribbon Day' commemoration of the victims of wartime crimes against non-Serbs in the area, where some 3,000 people died including 102 children in a campaign of persecution that started in 1992.

It commemorates the issuing of a decree in May 1992 by the wartime Bosnian Serb authorities in Prijedor, which was announced on Radio Prijedor, telling all non-Serbs to mark their houses with white flags or bedsheets and to wear white armbands when going outside - an incident that has become symbolic of the deadly campaign of persecution in the area at the time.

Ron Haviv's photographs depicting the suffering of prisoners who were detained in the Prijedor, Mostar and Banja Luka areas during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina went on display at the Endzio Hub gallery in Belgrade on Thursday evening at an exhibition entitled 'Liberty'.

War victims' associations, rights activists and Western diplomats in Bosnia and Herzegovina have criticised a police ban on a march marking the annual White Ribbon Day in Prijedor, which is intended to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the start of wartime persecution by Bosnian Serb forces in the area.

Hundreds of people joined a gathering in Prijedor on Tuesday to mark White Ribbon Day and commemorate the 102 children and more than 3,000 other civilians who were killed in the area during the war.

People tied white ribbons to fences and laid red roses in the square in tribute, as well as holding up banners with photographs of the victims.

The state court in Sarajevo on Tuesday confirmed a revised indictment charging Dane Bajic and Mijodrag Knezevic with committing a crime against humanity committed in the municipality of Prijedor in 1992.

The forced resignation of Dalibor Pavlovic as Mayor of Prijedor after his all-too-revealing selfies hit the media is testament to the way digital change now affects all walks of life.

The Bosnian state court on Wednesday handed down a first-instance verdict sentencing Sabahudin 'Sasa' Kajdic, a former member of the Third Company of the Bosnian Serb Army's Prijedor Motorised Brigade, to 12 years in prison for committed crimes against humanity in Prijedor in 1992.

Boro Milojica's defence lawyer Ranko Dakic told BIRN that an appeal to reduce the former Bosnian Serb Army soldier's 20-year sentence has been rejected by the appeals chamber of the Bosnian state court.