Srebrenica Genocide Survivor: “It will happen to us again” | Genocide news

The survivors of the Srebrenica genocide, in which Bosnian Serb forces systematically killed more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys over several days, marked the 26th anniversary of the killings.

Coffins containing the remains of 19 Bosnians found in mass graves and recently identified through DNA testing, will be buried on Sunday in the memorial cemetery of genocide victims on the outskirts of the town in eastern Bosnia.

Vahid Suljic was then a nine-year-old boy from the neighboring village of Voljavica, who had taken refuge in Srebrenica with his family.

He survived the genocide, but what he witnessed traumatized him for years.

Suljic recounted his experiences and told Al Jazeera that he feared genocide would be committed against Bosnians again if Serbian denial of the genocide continued and lingering tensions rekindled.

Escape to Srebrenica

Between 1992 and 1995, Bosnia and Herzegovina was embroiled in an ethnic war between Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims. Some 100,000 people have been killed.

Bosnian Serb forces began attacking villages and towns across Bosnia in 1992, in an attempt to “ethnically cleanse” non-Serbs in the region to create a Greater Serbia.

For Suljic’s family, the nightmare began in May 1992 when they first heard of Serbian paramilitary units torturing, killing and taking Bosnian Muslims to concentration camps in the neighboring areas of Voljavica, located near from the Serbian border.

Vahid Suljic, standing next to the UN soldier and facing the camera, is pictured in this 1994 photo of Srebrenica [Courtesy of Vahid Suljic]

Fearing that they would soon suffer a similar fate, the Suljic family fled to the nearby woods where they hid for about two weeks. Meanwhile, Serbian paramilitaries arrived in their village and elderly people who could not escape into the woods were burned alive in one of the houses, Suljic said.

To save their lives, a group of 250 Bosnian civilians from Voljavica decided to take the day hike through the woods to Srebrenica, located 15 km (9.3 miles) away, as it was then controlled by the Bosnian army.

During their trek, Serbian forces ambushed the group twice with machine gun fire. At each “machine gun nest” there were between 30 and 50 shooters, Suljic said. Some 60 to 70 Bosnians were killed in the ambushes.

Her family, including her 10-year-old sister, survived by jumping into a nearby cove and waiting for nightfall before continuing to Srebrenica.

“We were actually like wild animals hunted because they were preparing [to kill us] in many places, ”Suljic said.

“Srebrenica was under siege from all sides and they knew people from the surrounding area were trying to break into Srebrenica, and they were preparing for it.

The genocide occurred even as Srebrenica was a United Nations protected “safe zone” where some 50,000 Bosnians had sought refuge.

Genocide

When the Srebrenica “safe zone” fell into the hands of Serbian forces on July 11, 1995, Suljic and his family were among the thousands who sought refuge in and outside the old factory in Srebrenica. batteries where the UN base was held by a Dutch battalion of UN soldiers.

Dutch UN peacekeepers sit on top of an armored personnel carrier as Bosnian Muslim refugees from Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia seek refuge in the nearby village of Potocari [File: AP Photo]

Suljic saw Serbian forces, dressed in UN uniforms to masquerade as Dutch soldiers, enter freely and observe everyone at the base.

At night, while people were sleeping, Serbian forces separated the men from their families to kill them and also took women and girls off the base and raped them.

Suljic said the Dutch soldiers did nothing to stop what the Serbian forces were doing.

“[Serb forces] did what they wanted. They had full control over the base.

“I remember [Bosniak] men screaming and asking for help every night, ”Suljic said.

During the day, Suljic also heard high-pitched screams in the woods when he went to fetch water from a river in the field near the base.

“I saw corpses [there], severed heads… it’s impossible to describe in words.

In 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court upheld the partial liability of the Netherlands for the deaths of approximately 350 Bosnian Muslims murdered by Serbian forces in Srebrenica.

Bosnians killed under the name Suljic are listed at the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Center [Courtesy of Vahid Suljic]

After three days at the base, the buses arrived. Dutch soldiers informed them that the women and children would be evacuated to the town of Tuzla, in liberated territory controlled by the Bosnian army, but that all men between the ages of 11 and 77 were to stay and wait to be picked up. by another bus train. .

As Suljic’s uncle drove him to the bus, the Serbian soldiers forcibly separated them and Suljic never saw his uncle again.

“While we were on our way to Tuzla, we saw the captured men being taken away to be shot. Among them, I recognized my neighbors, with whom I played before and during the war. They looked scared and traumatized, ”Suljic said.

When the women and children arrived in Tuzla, they stayed in a refugee camp and waited for news from their relatives.

Vahid Suljic prays for his uncle Vahdet Suljic at his grave at Srebrenica Memorial and Cemetery – Potocari [Courtesy of Vahid Suljic]

Suljic’s father managed to escape and after seven days of walking through the woods, crossing Serbian lines and surviving gunfire and ambushes amid the famine, Suljic’s father was part of a small minority. Bosnians who made it out alive.

A few years ago, Suljic’s family received a phone call informing them that the bodies of his uncles had been found in various mass graves.

Some of the remains of his father’s brother, Vahdet Suljic, aged 28 at the time, were later found in three different mass graves, some 30 km apart. They have already buried some of his remains twice, but more than half of his remains are still missing.

In just three days, Serbian forces killed more than half of the family, including uncles, cousins ​​and other family members, Suljic said.

Denial of genocide

Several thousand Serbs and Bosnians continue to live in the impoverished town of Srebrenica. Suljic describes it as a “dead city” today, with no prospects. He now lives in the Gulf State of Qatar.

While 26 years have passed since the genocide, the survivors still struggle against the widespread denial by Serbs of historical facts which have been repeatedly confirmed by international tribunals in The Hague.

Posters and graffiti glorifying Ratko Mladic, the general who led the Bosnian Serb forces and was convicted of genocide, are regularly found in areas populated by Bosnian Serbs as well as in neighboring Serbia and Montenegro.

Billboard in Bratunac # SrebrenicaGenocide #bratunac pic.twitter.com/YT3mm82eqQ

– 🅰 ꧂ (@K_U_P_E_K) July 10, 2021

Ahead of the 26th anniversary of the genocide, Bosnian media reported on Friday that Serbian war celebrations were taking place in the backyard of a church above the memorial center, with provocative music.

The latest report on the denial of the Srebrenica genocide (PDF) released on Friday by the Srebrenica Memorial Center identified at least 234 cases of denial in regional public discourse and the media over the past year, with the majority of cases occurring in Serbia.

Srebrenica 2021 Genocide Denial Report: In 2021, the three most common tactics used in genocide denial remain challenging the number and identity of victims, conspiracy theories that challenge decisions and integrity of the int. courts and nationalist historical revisionism. pic.twitter.com/2dBygweYvS

– Srebrenica Memorial Center (@SrebrenicaMC) July 10, 2021

The report found that the majority of Srebrenica genocide deniers work in the public sector, including 28 who currently hold positions in state and entity governments. Alarmingly, many of them were active in the Serbian political and military apparatuses during the Bosnian war.

Lejla Gacanica, editor-in-chief of the report, told a press conference on Friday that accounts denying genocide and glorifying war criminals have intensified over the past year and that denial in the region makes part of the strategy of the Serbian state.

According to American genocide scholar Gregory H Stanton, who invented the “10 stages of genocideTheory, denial is “one of the surest indicators of new genocidal massacres”.

Suljic said the still latent tensions and genocide denial pose serious risks for the future.

“If the situation continues like this, I think Srebrenica [another genocide] will happen to us again.