Srebrenica Widows Agonize Over the Dead and Missing

Friday 15 International Friday, July 10, 2020 Srebrenica widows agonize over the dead and missing ‘I still think he’s alive somewhere’ SREBRENICA: Fatima Mujic prays every day for calls the last time she saw her children. She was the husband and three sons killed in the geno- among thousands of women, children and elderly cide against Bosnian Muslims that unfolded over who had gathered in front of a UN base outside several summer days in the town of Srebrenica of Srebrenica after Serb troops over-ran the 25 years ago. But she hesitates each time, think- Dutch soldiers who had been protecting the Mus- ing of her eldest son Refik, who has still not been lim enclave, deemed a “safe haven” at the time. found a quarter-century after the massacre. “I Under the command of Bosnian Serb military still think he’s alive somewhere. I know about the leader Ratko Mladic, men and boys were taken others, but when I pray for him my hands start away and summarily killed. Mujic recalls how her shaking, I don’t know what to do,” the 75-year- youngest son, 16-year-old Nufik, “hung on to me old widow told AFP. Her loved ones were among and said, ‘Mum, don’t leave me.’” “I stroked his some 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were curly hair and said ‘I won’t leave you’,” she re- killed by Serb forces in the eastern enclave to- members. “They took him, I followed them. I wards the end of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, an atroc- don’t know if they hit me, but I don’t remember ity deemed a genocide by international courts. anything,” she said. Her two other sons and her Mujic’s husband and two of her sons, whose re- husband tried to flee into the forest but were mains were found in mass graves after the con- captured. flict, were buried a decade ago in the memorial centre where more than 6,600 victims of the ‘Black soil’ victims lie. Another widow, 71-year-old Mejra Djogaz, Another 237 have been laid to rest at other has decided to spend the rest of her days in the sites. But more than 1,000 people have never place where her life “stopped”. She lives in a been found, an acute source of pain for sur- house a stone’s throw away from the memorial vivors. Mujic, who now lives in a village near in Srebrenica, which now lies in a Serb-domi- POTOCARI: A picture shows tombstones of victims of the massive killing of Srebrenica during Sarajevo, says she “lives for the call” that the re- nated half of Bosnia, a legacy of ethnic cleansing Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, at Potocari memorial center, near Srebrenica. — AFP mains of Refik have been unearthed. But a during the war that left lasting divides between decade has passed since the last of 84 mass Bosnia’s Serb, Muslim and Croat communities. graves was discovered. “Since July 2019, the re- Every morning, when she goes out to water husband Mustafa, were killed earlier in the war men who killed her sons and her husband: “Did mains of only 13 victims have been found,” said the flowers on her patio, she sees thousands of during a 1992 siege of Srebrenica. “My sons did- they have children?” Her two children, Mehrudin Emza Fazlic, spokesperson for the Missing Per- white gravestones that fan out in straight rows n’t hurt anyone, they didn’t stand in the way of and Mustafa, were 17 and 20. Before fleeing into sons Institute. A lack of new information and across the green lawns of the memorial. Her two an ant. I only wonder why they killed my chil- the forest with their father, the eldest smoked a witnesses has hampered the search, she said. sons Omer and Munib lie there. They were 19 dren? They were our neighbors,” Djogaz cigarette and rolled another one. “Mother, I will and 21 years old. “I no longer have a reason to laments. never see you again,” he told her. “The youngest ‘Don’t leave me’ live. I take care of the flowers so I don’t go crazy, didn’t say anything,” adds Gurdic. The remains Ahead of the commemoration of the 25th an- but my flowers are in black soil,” says the woman ‘A beautiful child’ of both boys were later found, but only “half of niversary of the massacre on Saturday, Mujic re- whose third son, Zuhdija, who was 20, and her Ramiza Gurdic, 67, also wonders about the Mehrudin”. — AFP battled enclave. Dozens are killed in bombard- Srebrenica: ments by Bosnian Serb forces. On April 16, as the brenica, however, causing tens of thousands town comes under fire from tanks and artillery, Twenty-five years of refugees to flee to the Dutch UN peace- the UN Security Council declares Srebrenica a keeping force’s compound at Potocari on the Three-year hilly town’s northern outskirts. The peace- “safe area”, under the protection of UN and ago: Srebrenica NATO forces. A ceasefire and demilitarization keepers and about 5,000 refugees, mostly siege ends in accord is signed the next day in Sarajevo under women and children, retreated into the UN the auspices of the UN, but it is never respected. massacre base, while thousands of others gathered out- massacre The UN High Commissioner for Refugees side. The refugees inside the base were even- (UNHCR) channels foodstuffs and other neces- tually expelled into the hands of waiting SARAJEVO: Twenty-five years ago, more sities into the town, which is now a protected Bosnian Serb troops, who started forcibly than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were mas- bussing people out, separating the men and SARAJEVO: Srebrenica suffered a three-year- zone. In May the UN creates five other safe sacred at Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb troops, boys from the women. long siege, culminating in a massacre, which has areas, Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zepa, Gorazde and Bihac. in one of the darkest chapters of the break up come to symbolize the Bosnian Serbs’ policy of On March 1, 1994, a contingent of around 450 of Yugoslavia. The worst massacre in Europe UN peacekeepers is deployed to the enclave Massacre “ethnic cleansing” during the Balkan country’s since World War II, it was classed as genocide In the following days more than 8,000 1992-1995 war. Key dates: where the rotation of UN soldiers had previously by the International Criminal Tribunal for the been held up. Dutch troops take over from Muslim men and boys were systematically former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It marked a turning butchered by the Bosnian Serb forces under Canadian peacekeepers. First fall point in the war in Bosnia, the most ethnically- Mladic’s command and their bodies dumped Srebrenica, a mainly Muslim town in eastern mixed of Yugoslavia’s six republics. Muslims, in mass graves. Hundreds of men who fled Final offensive Bosnia, falls to Bosnian Serb troops shortly after Serbs and Croats battled each other from into the surrounding forests were rounded In early July 1995, the Bosnian Serb forces at- the start of the siege of the capital Sarajevo at 1992 to 1995, leaving nearly 100,000 people up and shot. Most of the mass graves were the beginning of the war in April 1992. Other tack Muslim government positions to the south, dead and 2.2 million others displaced. Things later dug up with bulldozers and the bodies towns in the eastern Drina valley also fall to the east and north of the enclave. They take control to know about the massacre: removed to hide the scale of the crime. Wit- troops, who are helped by paramilitary groups of the peacekeepers’ positions on the 9th, after ness accounts quickly emerged, collected by which have come in from neighboring Serbia. seizing some 30 blue berets. Bosnian Serb tanks Enclave falls aid organizations from escapees who re- Driven out under a policy dubbed “ethnic are by then less than two kilometres from the Besieged by Bosnian Serb forces from the counted the atrocities of Mladic’s men. A cleansing”, the Bosnian Muslims retake the en- town. On July 11, NATO carries out airstrikes on beginning of the conflict, the eastern mainly- total of 51 convictions have been made, 20 clave but at the end of the year it is again tar- two Serbian tanks on the outskirts of Srebrenica. Muslim town of 148 square kilometers was for genocide, by international courts and geted by the Serbs, who cut off the road access. However, on the morning of July 11, 1995, the declared a “safe area” by the UN in April those in Bosnia and Serbia. The highest- Bosnian Serb army of Ratko Mladic overruns Sre- 1993. UN peacekeepers were deployed. On ranking Bosnian Serb political leader, ‘Safe area’ brenica, causing tens of thousands of refugees to the morning of July 11, 1995, the Bosnian Serb Radovan Karadzic, was sentenced to life in Between March and April in 1993 some 8,000 flee to the Dutch force’s compound at Potocari on army of Ratko Mladic finally overran Sre- prison on appeal in March 2019. — AFP people are evacuated from the increasingly em- the hilly town’s outskirts. — AFP.

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