The Camp
The camp consisted of a sports hall and a threestorey central prison building in which thousands of non-Croatian Mostar residents, predominantly civilians, were detained and tortured. Conditions at the Heliodrom concentration camp were inhumane, with severe overcrowding, inadequate medical and sanitary facilities, insufficient food and water, inadequate ventilation, and in the summer, suffocating heat. Detainees often slept on concrete floors with no bedding or blankets. On some occasions, HVO guards withheld all food and water from the detainees, in retaliation for HVO military setbacks.
Herceg-Bosna/HVO forces regularly mistreated and abused, and allowed the mistreatment and abuse of, Bosniak detainees, both at the Heliodrom itself and at various locations where detainees were taken for forced labour or other purposes. There was regular cruel treatment and infliction of great suffering, with HVO soldiers and guards routinely beating detainees, often to the point of unconsciousness and severe injuries. Bosniak detainees lived in constant fear of physical and mental abuse. Passing HVO soldiers often fired their weapons indiscriminately at Bosniak detainees held in crowded areas. Other detainees were attacked by HVO guard dogs which were released by the guards for the specific purpose of inflicting injury and fear. Bosniak detainees were often humiliated in various ways, including being forced to sing nationalistic Croatian songs.
Bosniak men were held and continued to be detained at the Heliodrom concentration camp without any bona fide or adequate effort by the Herceg-Bosna/HVO authorities or forces to distinguish, classify or separate military prisoners from civilian detainees, or to provide for the release of civilian detainees.
The use of Bosniak detainees held at the Heliodrom in forced labour or as human shields resulted in many dead and wounded detainees. Due to challenges of identifying the detainees, in a couple limited studies, at least fifty-four identified Bosniak detainees being killed and at least 178 identified Bosniaks were wounded. However, as most victims were not identified, these numbers are expected to be much higher. In reality, thousands of prisoners were abused, hundreds of prisoners used as human shields during Croatian military activities. Most of the abuses are still unadentified and undocumented, especially those that occurred at locations outside of the camp to which the detainees were often taken.
Read more about this topic: Heliodrom Camp
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)