More Srebrenica Victims Buried on Massacre Anniversary

Velma Šarić

IWPR-trained journalist

Friday, 16 July, 2010

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Zumra Sehomerovic had already buried her husband, three of her sons, her brother, and her nephew at the Potocari Memorial Centre. This week, at a ceremony to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, she buried her fourth son, Bajazit, who was only 16 when he was killed in July 1995.

“I have no words, no words at all, to describe the pain I feel inside,” she said. “All my dreams are shattered, they're pointless right now. I was hoping, after all these years, that he'd show up from somewhere, that he'd be alive.”

Bajazit was among 775 newly-identified victims of the massacre - including two boys who were only 14 when they were murdered – found in mass graves and laid to rest on July 10 at the memorial centre in eastern Bosnia. An estimated 60,000 people had travelled from Bosnia, the region and around the world to pay their respects, braving the severe heat wave that struck the country this week.

Nearly 4,000 bodies have already been buried at Potocari. Victims' families say they find at least partial satisfaction in being able to lay their loved ones to rest, while others still hope for the discovery of the remains of their relatives from yet unknown mass graves. And for many, justice remains elusive.

“I feel anger and rage, because the criminal who took my children away from me, Ratko Mladic, is still living as a free man,” said Sehomerovic.

In the days following the occupation of the Srebrenica enclave by the Bosnian Serb army, VRS, troops on July 11, 1995, an estimated 8,372 Bosniak men and boys were killed in the worst atrocity committed on European soil since the end of World War Two. This year’s ceremony also saw a renewed commitment to bring Mladic, who led the armed forces of the Bosnian Serbs during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s, to justice.

Although a number of VRS officers have been convicted by the Hague tribunal for their involvement and others, including former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, are currently on trial, Mladic remains at large.

“What should I hope for,” Sehomerovic asked, “when I know that justice is still far away, our children are gone, we mothers will be gone too, but Mladic will still remain a free man in Serbia?”

Amongst those calling for his arrest was President Boris Tadic of Serbia, whose presence at the event was seen as particularly significant. In March, the Serbian parliament passed a landmark resolution apologising for the massacre, although it stopped short of recognising it as genocide.

In 2007, the International Court of Justice found Serbia guilty of not having prevented Srebrenica.

“As president of Serbia, I will never give up looking for the remaining culprits - and I especially mean Ratko Mladic,” Tadic said.

He described the events in Srebrenica in 1995 as a tragedy for “the Bosniak people, but also of all others who lived in the former Yugoslavia” and added that “this page in history cannot be closed until all those guilty for it be brought to the face of justice”.

Other dignitaries added their voices to demands for Mladic to be apprehended, including United States president Barack Obama.

In a message read by the US ambassador to Bosnia, Charles English, Obama said, “We have a sacred duty to remember the cruelty that occurred here, and to prevent such atrocities from happening again. We have an obligation to victims and to their surviving family members.

“And we have a responsibility to future generations all over the globe to agree that we must refuse to be bystanders to evil; whenever and wherever it occurs, we must be prepared to stand up for human dignity.”

Urging “the prosecution and arrest of those that carried out the genocide", he added, “This includes Ratko Mladic who presided over the killings and remains at large.”

The ceremony was also attended by Belgian prime minister Yves Leterme, whose country is currently chairing the European Union, and Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan added that it was important to build and strengthen peace between different ethnicities and religions to ensure Srebrenica never happened again.

“I was encouraged by seeing a mother [of a victim] come up to President Tadic of Serbia, not carrying hatred in her eyes, but sorrow, peace and pride. She is an honourable mother and we all need mothers like her,” he said.

A large number of Bosnian dignitaries also attended the ceremony, including two out of three members of the presidency, the Bosniak Haris Silajdzic and the Croat Zeljko Komsic. The Serb presidency member, Nebojsa Radmanovic, was absent.

Silajdzic called for the adoption of a national law prohibiting genocide denial, arguing that “nowhere in the world, except in Bosnia and Hercegovina, is the genocide in Srebrenica being denied”.

This year's commemoration also saw the first funeral of a Catholic victim at the Potocari memorial site. Rudolf Hren, a Catholic Bosnian living in Srebrenica in July 1995 was killed alongside the Bosnian Muslim victims, and his mother Barbara said she explicitly wanted him buried “among his friends”.

Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained journalist in Sarajevo.