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In the summer of 1995, the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica was the site of the worst massacre of civilians in Europe since the Second World War, BGNES reported.
Serbian forces, commanded by General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, massacred more than 9,000 people in just a few days. The bodies of more than 8,000 of them have been found so far. They are buried in the Potocari area near the city.
In the tragic year 1995, the current Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic was Minister of Information in the cabinet of Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Before the parliament in Belgrade, Vucic vowed that "for every Serb killed, there will be 100 Bosnians."
During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (1992-95), tens of thousands of Bosniaks from surrounding areas, fleeing attacks by Bosnian Serb forces on their towns and villages, sought shelter in Srebrenica. For three years, Bosnian Serb forces besieged and shelled the enclave. They control access roads and prevent international humanitarian aid such as food and medicine. People camp in the stairwells and corridors of apartment buildings, in cars and in public buildings such as the school and sports centre, while others have no shelter at all and huddle outside in temperatures that drop to -25ºC at night in winter.
In April 1993, when the town came under tank and artillery fire from the Serbs, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 819 declaring Srebrenica a 'safe zone'. A few days later, an agreement was signed calling for a complete ceasefire in Srebrenica, the demilitarisation of the enclave, the deployment of a UNPROFOR company and the opening of a corridor between Tuzla and Srebrenica for the evacuation of the seriously wounded and sick. UNPROFOR established a small command centre in Srebrenica itself and a larger main base about five kilometres north of the town at Potocari ('UN compound'). Since the arrival of the initial UNPROFOR force in April 1993, new troops have rotated into the enclave approximately every six months. In January 1995, a Dutch battalion ("DutchBat") arrived.
In March, Radovan Karadzic, president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Republika Srpska region, ordered Bosnian Serb forces to eliminate the Muslim population from the enclaves of Srebrenica and Žepa. "Directive 7" served as a precursor to genocide. The Drina Corps of the Army of the Republika Srpska received the following order:
"Through planned and well thought out combat operations, create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica and Žepa."
In July 1995, Directive 7 was transformed into a concrete plan. The Serbs overran the peacekeeping positions, taking some 30 Dutch soldiers hostage.
On 11 July, the Bosnian Serb army, led by General Ratko Mladic, captured Srebrenica, causing tens of thousands of refugees to flee to the Dutch forces' compound at Potocari on the outskirts of the city.
The peacekeepers retreated ingloriously to the UN base, along with thousands of refugees, mostly women and children.
Demanding that the Muslim population in Srebrenica surrender, Mladic promises that those who lay down their arms and submit will be spared.
"Allah cannot save you, but Mladic can," the convicted war criminal told Ibrahim Nuhanovic, a civilian Muslim interpreter, in a meeting in The Hague a few hours before the massacre began, which was recorded on video.
Over the next few days, more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were systematically slaughtered by Bosnian Serbs, their bodies dumped in mass graves. Later, the Serbs buried many of them and reburied them to cover their tracks.
A judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague described the massacre in these words:
"After Srebrenica fell to the siege of Serbian forces in July 1995, a truly terrible massacre of the Muslim population was committed.
The evidence describes scenes of unimaginable cruelty: thousands of men executed and buried in mass graves, hundreds of men buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed in front of their mothers, a grandfather forced to eat the liver of his own grandson.
These are true scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history."
The survivors are counted on fingers. They tell harrowing tales of murder, torture and rape at the hands of the Serbs, for which Mladic and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic have been charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
For genocide, crimes against humanity and other crimes committed in Srebrenica in July 1995, the Hague Tribunal and courts in BiH, Serbia and Croatia have so far sentenced 47 people to more than 700 years in prison, including Drina Corps commanders Vujadin Popovic and Radislav Krstic, among others.
Karadzic and Mladic hid for years in Serbia and were only captured in 2008 and 2011 respectively. They were sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2002, the entire Dutch government resigned following an investigation that proved the regrettable role of the withdrawal of Dutch troops. The then Prime Minister Wim Kok says that the government thus accepted its responsibility for the massacre, but not the blame. The relatives did not think this was enough and for years they demanded an apology. They only got it in 2022 - 27 years after their relatives were slaughtered. /BGNES
