On 5 November, Serbian police arrested five persons suspected of war crimes against Roma civilians in eastern Bosnia. The arrests followed an official request for investigation issued by Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor.

Speaking about the case, Kandic also highlighted alleged crimes specifically aimed against Roma women, who, according to Kandic, were enslaved.

“Here we have, not just killings of Roma civilians, plunder, burning and destruction of their property, but also the use of young Roma women for housework, for cooking, for serving men in a number of different ways… Some of these girls ended up in Serbia as they were brought as mistresses and some of them continued living with their rapists, with perpetrators of terrible crimes,” Kandic said.

The five suspects are not yet indicted. The war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, said in an interview a day before the arrests that his office was preparing to open three new cases.