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The Omarska camp was a concentration camp run by the Army of Republika Srpska in the mining town of Omarska, near Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, set up for Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Bosnian Croats prisoners during the Prijedor ethnic cleansing. Functioning in the first months of the Bosnian War in 1992, it was one of 677 alleged detention centers and camps set up throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. While nominally an "investigation center" or "assembly point" for members of the Bosniak and Croatian population, Human Rights Watch classified Omarska as a concentration camp.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, located in The Hague, found several individuals guilty of crimes against humanity perpetrated at Omarska. Murder, torture, rape, and abuse of prisoners was common. Around 6,000 Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, mainly men, were held at the camp for about five months in the spring and summer of 1992. Hundreds died of starvation, punishment, beatings, ill-treatment and executions.
The Omarska mines complex was located about from Prijedor. The first detainees were taken to the camp at some point between 26 and 30 May. The camp buildings were almost completely full and some of the detainees had to be held in the area between the two main buildings. That area was lit up by specially installed spot-lights after the detainees arrived. Female detainees were held separately in the administrative building. According to the wartime documents of Serb authorities, there were a total of 3,334 persons held in the camp from 27 May to 16 August 1992; 3,197 were Bosniaks and 125 were Croats.
Within the area of the Omarska mining complex that was used for the camp, the camp authorities generally confined the prisoners in three different buildings: the administration building, where interrogations and killings took place; the crammed hangar building; the "white house", where the inmates were tortured; and on a cement courtyard area between the buildings known as the "pista", an L-shaped strip of concrete land in between, also a scene of torture and mass killings. There was another small building, known as the "red house", where prisoners were sometimes taken in order to be summarily executed. With the arrival of the first detainees, permanent guard posts and anti-personnel were set up around the camp. The conditions in the camp were horrible. In the building known as the "white house", the rooms were crowded with 45 people in a room no larger than . The faces of the detainees were distorted and bloodstained and the walls were covered with blood. From the beginning, the detainees were beaten with fists, rifle butts and wooden and metal sticks. The guards mostly hit the heart and kidneys whenever they decided to beat someone to death. In the "garage", between 150 and 160 people were "packed like sardines" and the heat was unbearable. For the first few days, the detainees were not allowed out and were given only a jerry can of water and some bread. Men would suffocate during the night and their bodies would be taken out the following morning. The room behind the restaurant was known as "Mujo’s Room". The dimensions of this room were about and the average number of people detained there was 500, most of whom were Bosniaks. The women in the camp slept in the interrogations rooms, which they would have to clean each day as the rooms were covered in blood and pieces of skin and hair. In the camp one could hear the moaning and wailing of people who were being beaten.
The detainees at Omarska had one meal a day. The food was usually spoiled and the process of getting the food, eating and returning the plate usually lasted around three minutes. Meals were often accompanied by beatings. The toilets were blocked and there was human waste everywhere. United Kingdom journalist Ed Vulliamy testified that when he visited the camp, the detainees were in very poor physical condition. He witnessed them eating a bowl of soup and some bread and said that he had the impression they had not eaten in a long time; they appeared terrified. According to Vulliamy, the detainees drank water from a river that was polluted with industrial waste and many suffered from constipation or dysentery. No criminal report was ever filed against persons detained in the Omarska camp, nor were the detainees apprised of any concrete charges against them. Apparently, there was no legitimate reason justifying these people’s detention.
Murder, torture, rape, and abuse of prisoners was common. Detainees were kept in inhumane conditions and an atmosphere of extreme psychological and physical violence pervaded the camp. The camp guards and frequent visitors who came to the camps used all types of weapons and instruments to beat and otherwise physically abuse the detainees. In particular, Bosniak and Bosnian Croat political and civic leaders, intellectuals, the wealthy, and other non-Serbs who were considered "extremists" or to have resisted the Bosnian Serbs were especially subjected to beatings and mistreatment which often resulted in death.
In addition, the Omarska and also operated in a manner designed to discriminate and subjugate the non-Serbs by inhumane acts and cruel treatment. These acts included the brutal living conditions imposed on the prisoners. There was a deliberate policy of overcrowding and lack of basic necessities of life, including inadequate food, polluted water, insufficient or non-existent medical care and unhygienic and cramped conditions. The prisoners all suffered serious psychological and physical deterioration and were in a state of constant fear. Inmates were usually killed by shooting, beating or by the cutting of throats; however, in one incident, prisoners were incinerated on a pyre of burning tires. The corpses were then transferred onto trucks by other inmates or using . There were instances where prisoners were brought to dig the graves and did not return. The ICTY Trial Chamber in the Stakić case found on the basis of the evidence presented at trial, that "over 100" prisoners were killed at the camp in late July 1992. About 200 people from Hambarine brought to the camp in July 1992 were held in the building known as the "white House". In the early hours of 17 July, gunshots were heard that continued until dawn. Corpses were seen in front of the "white house" and camp guards were seen shooting rounds of ammunition into the bodies. A witness testified that "everyone was given an extra bullet that was shot in their heads". About 180 bodies in total were loaded onto a truck and taken away.
The camp was closed immediately after a visit by foreign journalists in early August. On 6 or 7 August 1992, the detainees at Omarska were divided into groups and transported in buses to different destinations. About 1,500 people were transported on twenty buses.
On 26 February 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) presented its judgment in the Bosnian Genocide Case, in which it had examined atrocities committed in detention camps, including Omarska, in relation to Article II (b) of the Genocide Convention. The Court stated in its judgment:
Having carefully examined the evidence presented before it, and taken note of that presented to the ICTY, the Court considers that it has been established by fully conclusive evidence that members of the protected group were systematically victims of massive mistreatment, beatings, rape and torture causing serious bodily and mental harm during the conflict and, in particular, in the detention camps. The requirements of the material element, as defined by Article II (b) of the Convention are thus fulfilled. The Court finds, however, on the basis of evidence before it, that it has not been conclusively established that those atrocities, although they too may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, were committed with the specific intent ( dolus specialis) to destroy the protected group, in whole or in part, required for a finding that genocide has been perpetrated.
By the time of the 20th anniversary of the camp's closure proposals for a physical memorial to the camp's existence had made no progress. ArcelorMittal said that it was prepared to meet the former inmates' demands but the local authorities were ultimately responsible for granting permission. The Republika Srpska authorities considered that allowing camp survivors free access to the site and the construction of a memorial as originally agreed by ArcelorMittal would undermine reconciliation. "Prijedor 92" president Mirsad Duratović, stated that the campaign for a memorial would continue.
In July 2012, ahead of the start of the 2012 London Olympic Games, survivors of the camp laid claim to the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower, the tallest structure in Britain, located in the Olympic Park beside the Olympic stadium, as the 'Omarska Memorial in Exile'. The survivors allege that the Orbit is "tragically intertwined with the history of war crimes in Bosnia, as the bones of victims are mixed in with the iron ore". ArcelorMittal denied that material from Omarska had been used in the Orbit's construction. The company said that sensitive issues relating to the mine could not be addressed by ArcelorMittal on its own. Campaigners urged ArcelorMittal as the world's largest steel producer to use its considerable influence to oppose the local politics of denial and play an active role in healing fractured communities that have made the company's success possible. Susan Schuppli of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths' College in London, observed that ArcelorMittal insistence on "not taking sides" in an area where persecution and injustice continued was not neutrality but taking a political position by default.
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