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This “spa” was a rape concentration camp where Bosnian Serb militias raped Muslim women & girls during the war. No one has been held accountable. Shame on Republic of Srpska for advertising this “tourist site” and on municipality for administering hotel of horrors.h/t @georgiokon https://twitter.com/visitsrpska/status/1277147031522476033
I rarely use the world “evil,” but there is no other word for Vilina Vlas, a hotel and spa which in 1992 was used as headquarters for murder and rape by Milan Lukic, the leader of the Serb paramilitary group the White Eagles. 200 women and girls were sexually enslaved there
Bosnian journalist, feminist and friend @AhNidzara took me to Vilina Vlas in 2016 so that I could see how the horrors that women and girls are subjected to are so quickly erased; how the site of their horror is again a hotel and spa. No memorial. As if nothing has happened
As a receptionist gave us a tour, I could feel the spirit of the women and girls who had been kept prisoner in that concentration camp. “We remember you, sisters. We honour you, sisters,” I kept saying to myself. I promised I would always remind the world of what they endured.
Seeing people milling around in bathrobes, getting their hair styled in the salon, splashing around in the pool - which had been the site of daily mass rape of the women and girls - sickened me.
As soon as we exited the building, I asked Nidzara if I could hug her. Standing there, hugging her at the entrance of this place of horrors, I sobbed. And I continued sobbing as we drove away. Nidzara in the passsnger seat up front held my hand as I cried in the back of the car.
Edin, our driver who was a child during the war, couldn’t stand to come into the building with us.
I wanted to burn the place down. To destroy it brick by brick. #VilinaVlas
I wanted to burn the place down. To destroy it brick by brick. #VilinaVlas
The above are from my book The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls.
For more on the horror, erasure and willfull amnesia around #VilinaVlas https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/bosnia-hotel-rape-murder-war-crimes
For more on the horror, erasure and willfull amnesia around #VilinaVlas https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/28/bosnia-hotel-rape-murder-war-crimes
Between 12,000 and 50,000 women were raped during the Bosnian war.
A group called Association of the Women Victims of War is fighting to have a memorial plate installed on the front wall of war crimes site #VilinaVlas hotel and spa in Višegrad. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna878086
A group called Association of the Women Victims of War is fighting to have a memorial plate installed on the front wall of war crimes site #VilinaVlas hotel and spa in Višegrad. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna878086
After #VilinaVlas, Nidzara and Edin took me to #Srebrenica so that I could pay respect to the 8,000 men and boys genocided by Serb paramilitary there. The victims have a beautiful memorial. How different Vilina Vlas would be if the names of the women and girls were memorialized.
