Srebrenica massacre: ‘What happened should be known’

Sabriya Hajdarevic returns to Srebrenica every July to visit the graves of her husband and father.

They were among some 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys killed by Serb forces in 1995.

The 67-year-old now lives thousands of miles away in Australia, but the annual trips still mean a lot to her.

This year is even more emotional. July 11th was designated as an International Day of Reflection and Mourning for the first time. Ruling by the UN General Assembly in May.

The Srebrenica massacre, recognised by the United Nations as genocide, was the shocking climax of the Bosnian conflict that erupted after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

In Bosnia, one of the countries that emerged after the breakup, there was conflict between Bosnian Serbs, supported by Serbia, and three Bosnian and Croat communities.

Srebrenica was home to around 40,000 Bosnian Muslims, many of whom were forced to flee the Bosnian Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing between 1992 and 1995.

The town was designated a UN safe zone in 1993, and international peacekeeping forces were tasked with protecting it from any attack.

But in July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladic stormed the town and overwhelmed the peacekeeping forces.

Serb forces captured the town’s men and boys, most of whom were never seen alive again.

They were killed or killed en masse as they tried to flee through the forested hills around Srebrenica.

The brutal murder of around 8,000 men and boys has become known as Europe’s worst genocide since World War II, with around 1,000 bodies still missing.

Ratko Mladic was later sentenced to life in prison for war crimes including genocide, and around 50 Bosnian Serbs were also convicted.

A recent UN resolution designated July 11 as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration for the Srebrenica Genocide, and condemned denial of the genocide and the glorification of war criminals.

But most Bosnian Serbs, and many in Serbia, have repeatedly denied that the events in Srebrenica in 1995 were genocide.

Sabriha disputes claims that the killings in Srebrenica were not targeted.

“Instead of these lies being spread, we need to know what happened,” she said. “It breaks my heart.”

Some Bosniak families have been waiting for decades to bury their loved ones because of lengthy and difficult identification procedures.

Sabriha was able to bury her husband’s skull, the only part of the body that was exhumed.

Her father’s body has never been found, but she knows he was killed near their home in Srebrenica, as her mother witnessed the killing.

Six months after her father was killed, her mother also died. “I was so sad,” Sabliha said, fighting back tears.

Many of the victims of the Srebrenica genocide are buried in the nearby Potocari cemetery, thousands of simple white headstones set into a hillside field surrounded by forest.

Beriha Derik also lost her husband in the massacre, whose body was only discovered 10 years later and buried in 2010.

Last year, Berija decided to return to Srebrenica from Malta, where he had fled after the war.

Her son is a Muslim and married a Serbian Orthodox woman, who “loves baklava, the sweet treat I make,” she said.

Before the war in the 1990s, Srebrenica was a predominantly Bosnian Muslim town.

Today the majority of the population is ethnic Serb, some of whom were soldiers during the conflict.

“Even now, when you see someone walking down the street, you know they’ve killed someone. [Bosniaks] “But if we remain silent, we will never address the issue,” Beriha said.

After the war, Bosnia was divided into two states: Republika Srpska and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Srebrenica is in Republika Srpska.

Since the war, the Bosniak population has decreased and the Serb population has increased, but now they share one problem: unemployment.

“There are no problems between Serbs and Bosniaks here. The tensions are caused by outsiders,” said Slavisa Petrovic, a 37-year-old Serb who runs the local tourist information centre.

But he says jobs are needed to attract people to stay in town.

Slavisa added that the recent UN resolution on genocide had not changed anything.

“People are now just like they were before they left Srebrenica. [the adoption of the resolution]”Just like before, there are no jobs.”

The town is showing signs of decline: Buildings that were once popular local spas and luxury hotels have closed and lain abandoned for decades, their walls covered in graffiti.

Roads leading to nearby villages, once home to farmers with healthy livestock, are overgrown with weeds.

Many of the local houses are still in ruins, and a mosque and a Christian Orthodox church stand on the hillside above the town, revealing raw scars from the war.

Serb and Bosnian children attend local kindergartens and schools together, and photographs of the new generations are proudly displayed in public places in the town centre.

But the young people are likely to leave for good soon.

Slavisa is saddened that locals continue to abandon the town: “It feels like they are leaving my home,” he says.

Of his classmates, only three still live in Srebrenica – the rest have moved elsewhere.

But he is determined to stay.

But he acknowledges that it’s unlikely his four-year-old daughter will feel the same way when she grows up.