Plav–Gusinje massacres (1912–1913)
| Plav–Gusinje massacres | |
|---|---|
| Part of massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars | |
Plav in 1912 | |
| Location | Plav and Gusinje |
| Date | 1912–1913 |
| Target | Albanians and Bosniaks |
Attack type | Genocidal massacres, ethnic cleansing, forced conversions |
| Deaths | up to 1,800–8,000 |
| Victims | c. 12,000 forcefully converted |
| Perpetrators | Kingdom of Montenegro |
| Motive | Albanophobia, Anti-Bosniak sentiment, and Islamophobia |
The Plav–Gusinje massacres of 1912–1913 occurred between late 1912 and March 1913 in the areas of the modern Plav and Gusinje municipalities and adjacent areas. More than 1,800 locals, mostly Muslim Albanians and a significant number of Bosniaks from these two regions were killed and 12,000 were forced to convert to Orthodoxy by the military administration put in charge of these regions by the Kingdom of Montenegro which had annexed them during the First Balkan War.
Much of the military administration of Plav-Gusinje was manned by the captaincy of the Vasojevići tribe. Brigadier Avro Cemović was the chief leader of the perpetrators of the massacres. The events of the massacres and the forced conversions were stopped with the intervention mainly of Austria-Hungary in April 1913 after the killing of Franciscan Albanian monk Luigj Palaj in a similar campaign of forced conversion in western Kosovo. The events caused a wave of refugees towards Albania and the Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey). The descendants of the victims, Albanians and Bosniaks commemorate the events yearly and have erected memorials for their ancestors.