The Bosnian government has failed to  deliver justice for thousands of women raped during the country's 1992-95 war,  rights group Amnesty International said in a report on Wednesday.

"Amnesty International is concerned that the Bosnia-Hercegovina authorities  have investigated and prosecuted only a very limited number of cases of war  crimes of sexual violence," the report said.

More than 13 years after the war ended "many perpetrators (of wartime  rapes) continue to enjoy impunity and often live in the same communities as  their victims," it said.

The London-based organisation said Bosnian authorities had also failed to  provide "meaningful measures of support and protection" for the survivors.

"This results in survivors' continuous fears for their safety, which  discourages them from appearing in the courtroom and testifying," it warned.

The are no reliable statistics on the number of women who were raped, but  the Council of Europe estimated the figure around 20,000.

There were 18 war crimes cases involving rape before a UN tribunal in The  Hague -- the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)  -- and another 12 before the Court of Bosnia-Hercegovina.

The report also highlighted the lack of capacity in the country's court  system and an inadequate legal framework.

The state court and those at the level of Bosnia's two semi-independent  entities apply different criminal codes and the latter were not in line with  international standards, the report said.

Bosnia was split after the war into the Serbs' Republika Srpska and the  Muslim-Croat federation, which are linked through a weak central government.

The war crimes trials sometimes take place at local courts "that lack basic  equipment such as voice and image distortion" devices, Amnesty researcher Marek  Marczynski told reporters while presenting the report here. 

Rape victims are also discriminated against in terms of the state benefits  for which they are eligible, according to Amnesty.

The maximum financial allowance available to them is only 70 percent of the  amount available to a war veteran, the report said.

Only 500 women in the federation receive social benefits related to wartime  rape while figures for the Republika Srpska were not known, Marczynski said.

"Psychological support that is needed so much is also not provided by the  state," he said, stressing that non-governmental organisations alone provide  such assistance.

"Many women are not able to work or seek employment because they are too  traumatised."

Amnesty called on the Bosnian authorities to develop programmes and  allocate resources for long-term support and protection of witnesses, and to  employ investigators and prosecutors in lower-level courts with specialist  experience in war crimes cases.

The war that pitted Bosnian Croats, Muslims and Serbs against each other   claimed at least 100,000 lives, while more than two million people were left  homeless.

Bosnian courts try low-profile war crimes cases, while the ICTY handles  cases involving top officials from the war.

While lauding the ICTY for defining rape as a war crime, crime against  humanity or genocide, Amnesty also criticised certain cases.

Amnesty is "concerned that ... certain charges related to crimes of sexual  violence were reduced in the indictment in order to expedite the prosecution  cases."

(AFP)