Vilina Vlas

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Vilina Vlas is a health spa located about seven kilometres north-east of Višegrad (Bosnia and Herzegovina), on the way to Gorazde, which gained notoriety as a concentration and rape camp during the Bosnian War.

After the war, Vilina Vlas spa was re-opened to tourists.[1]

[edit] The Vilina Vlas camp

In 1992 the concentration and rape camp at the Vilina Vlas hotel was one of the Višegrad area's main detention facilities. It was established by the Uzice Corps in the end of April 1992 and played a significant role in the ethnic cleansing of the area's non-Serb population.

The Bosnian Serb warlord Milan Lukić and several volunteer regiments soldiers interrogated and tortured prisoners and raped hundreds of Bosnian Muslim women and girls. Muslim women were detained for purposes of rape and the hotel served as a camp "brothel". Women were brought to the camp by police officers, members of the White Eagles paramilitary group and militia.

Vilina Vlas was known as a place where young, beautiful women were detained and in testimony given to the Bassiouni Commission (the UN Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992)) it is claimed that women brought to this camp had been chosen to bear "Cetnik" children and were "selected" carefully. Many of the women were killed while others were exiled, became insane or committed suicide. Bosnian Muslim men and boys were also murdered at the hotel. A group of abductees from the village of Sjeverin were held hostage at the hotel before being killed.[2]

The camp was eventually closed and the detainees removed to an unknown destination after its existence became known outside Bosnia.

The camp's existence has been corroborated by multiple sources, including Amnesty International. Some of the atrocities perpetrated at Vilina Vlas are recorded in Annex VIII of the Bassiouni Report (Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992), United Nations Security Council S/1994/674 - 27 May 1994) and documented at the International Human Rights Law Institute of De Paul University, Chicago.

Dusko Andric, the alleged wartime director of the Vilina Vlas Hotel, was living as a pensioner in Visegrad in November 2000. ICG Balkans Report N° 103

[edit] See also

• Foča camp

[edit] External links

Bosnian War Issues

• Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992) (United Nations Security Council S/1994/674 - 27 May 1994) - Annex VIII - part 1/10 Prison camps - 85. Visegrad (includes section on Vilina Vlas)
• UNHCR Convention on Civil and Political Rights - Human Rights Committee Document CCPR/C/89, dated 27 April 1993, Bosnia and Herzegovina Report (extensive documentation of war crimes committed in Višegrad and surrounding areas)
• "THE RAPES IN BOSNIA: A BOSNIAC SCHOOLGIRL'S ACCOUNT" by Peter Maass, in The Washington Post, December 27,1992
• "Visegrad Rape Victims Say Their Cries Go Unheard" by Nidzara Ahmetasevic, Nerma Jelacic and Selma Boracic - Institute for War and Peace Reporting Balkan Insight, 18 October 2006 (BIRN report on the ICTY's failure to bring charges in relation to the use of the Vilina Vlas spa hotel as a rape camp)
• International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Latest Developments (link to Press Kit for Milan Lukic and Sredoje Lukic proceedings)
• "Lukic Murdered 410 Bosniaks and One Serb!" by Edina KAMENICA, in Oslobodjenje (Sarajevo), March 22, 2001 (report of "Merjem"'s experience at Vilina Vlas ; in collection of 2001 articles from Oslobodjenje).
• "Abduction" B92 programme by Veran Matic (transcript of television report on the abduction of a group of Bosniak men from Sjeverin who were detained at Vilina Vlas before being executed on the orders of Milan Lukic).
• "Vilina Vlas, The Fairy's Hair" A Greek TV documentary about the Vilina Vlas rapings. By Sotiris Danezis.