BOSNIAK OFFICIAL ANNOUNCES STUDY ON JASENOVAC VICTIMS

( Editorial: --> 4403 ) SARAJEVO, June 29 (Hina) - The founder of the "Bosniak Institute" from Zurich, Adil Zulfikarpasic, has confirmed that the institute should soon publish a reprint of a secret study on the Jasenovac concentration camp which claims that the actual number of victims in the Ustasha concentration camp was about 60,000. In a statement for today's issue of the Sarajevo daily "Oslobodjenje", Zulfikarpasic said the reprint could be published in two weeks. All the necessary investigation into the authenticity of the reprint has been completed, he added. The reprint is a study by the Federal Institute for Statistics in Belgrade, published in 1964 but printed as late as 1992. "Oslobodjenje" further says that the reasons for the belated printing could only be speculated about, but the most plausible explanation is that the real number of victims was not revealed for political reasons. Zulfikarpasic said he could not, for understandable reasons, say how he came into possession of the one of only two copies of this study, but added that the copy had "cost him dearly". "It is my obligation that truth not be concealed. Had we had this study earlier, the Bosniak Institute would have printed it," said Zulfikarpasic. According to the study, titled "War Victims 1941-1945, Ustasha Concentration Camp Jasenovac," the total number of people killed in the camp is 59,188. Of that number, there were about 34,000 Serbs, 9,000 Jews, 6,500 Croats, 1,500 Gypsies, 200 Slovenes, 38 Montenegrins, 60 Hungarians, 85 persons of other ethnic background, 6,850 ethnically unidentified persons and 950 Muslims. Zulfikarpasic added he believed that the number of Muslim victims was higher because many of them were classified either as Serbs or Croats. (hina) rml 291433 MET jun 98