Ahmici Massacre (1993)
Definition:
The brutal war fought in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the early 1990s saw atrocities and crimes against humanity, commonly reported under the euphemism of ‘ethnic cleansing’: murder and rape designed to either kill a population or force them to flee territory. Ethnic Cleansing is most commonly associated with Serb forces, but during the conflict many of the belligerents engaged in it. Perhaps the best known example of Croatian atrocities during the Bosnia-Herzegovina war occurred at Ahmici.
The Bosnians and Croats had a loose alliance at the start of the war, and would again by the end, but in the middle tensions between the local Bosnian-Croat groups and ‘Bosniac’ Bosnians led to warfare. On April 22nd 1993 a UN force entered the village of Ahmici, and found signs of a massacre. Attempts to piece together what happened revealed that a few days before, a force of Croatian ‘anti-terrorist’ troops calling themselves the ‘Jokers’ had entered the village along with allied policemen. The entire population was then pulled out of their homes, where first the men were shot, then the boys, and then all the women and girls. Anyone who tried to escape was shot by hidden snipers. The Jokers then went on to kill anything that was living, from pets to livestock. The bodies were then dumped in buildings and the village burnt down. 104 people had been killed.
The brutal war fought in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the early 1990s saw atrocities and crimes against humanity, commonly reported under the euphemism of ‘ethnic cleansing’: murder and rape designed to either kill a population or force them to flee territory. Ethnic Cleansing is most commonly associated with Serb forces, but during the conflict many of the belligerents engaged in it. Perhaps the best known example of Croatian atrocities during the Bosnia-Herzegovina war occurred at Ahmici.
The Bosnians and Croats had a loose alliance at the start of the war, and would again by the end, but in the middle tensions between the local Bosnian-Croat groups and ‘Bosniac’ Bosnians led to warfare. On April 22nd 1993 a UN force entered the village of Ahmici, and found signs of a massacre. Attempts to piece together what happened revealed that a few days before, a force of Croatian ‘anti-terrorist’ troops calling themselves the ‘Jokers’ had entered the village along with allied policemen. The entire population was then pulled out of their homes, where first the men were shot, then the boys, and then all the women and girls. Anyone who tried to escape was shot by hidden snipers. The Jokers then went on to kill anything that was living, from pets to livestock. The bodies were then dumped in buildings and the village burnt down. 104 people had been killed.
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