Women’s White Ribbon Day in Great Britain
In memory of the persecution and murder of 3,176 citizens of Prijedor and the surrounding area, in these extraordinary circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic, BH UK Network has invited BiH citizens in the UK and other countries to send us their photos with a white armband. This year, 102 photos were collected, a number that symbolically marks the 102 children killed in Prijedor. Photos were sent to BH UK Network from America, Canada, England, Scotland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Germany and Slovenia… Thank you to all those who responded and expressed their solidarity with the victims in this way.
On May 31, 1992, the Bosnian Serb authorities in Prijedor issued an order over the local radio ordering the non-Serb population to mark their houses with white flags or sheets, and to wear white armbands when leaving their homes.
“Citizens of Serbian nationality, join your army and police in the pursuit of these extremists. Other citizens, Muslim and Croat, must hang white flags on their houses and apartments and wear white armbands. Otherwise, they will suffer serious consequences,” the radio call read.
For the first time since World War II, an ethnic community that was systematically taken to the Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm camps and other camps, from which a small number of them survived, was ordered to be marked in such a way.
White Armband Day was first celebrated in Prijedor in 2012 as the start of a protest campaign against the decision of the city authorities in Prijedor to prohibit the families of victims from publicly marking the twentieth anniversary of the crimes against the Bosniaks and Croats of Prijedor.
Every year, thousands of people have gathered in the city square and laid 102 roses with the names of the murdered children, to point out the lack of a memorial where their suffering would be commemorated in a dignified manner.
The Day of White Ribbons is celebrated every year in certain cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in cities around the world.
BH UK Network
