Pointed shoes as testimony of unfulfilled hopes. They belonged to a young woman from Bosnia and Herzegovina whose life was forever changed by the brutal war that broke out in the heart of Europe at the end of the 20th century. The photo of the pink pointe shoes is one of the pieces on display at the UN headquarters to educate visitors about the horrors of war and genocide.
Munira Subasic does not need photographs to remember the tragedy that claimed the lives of her husband, her son and twenty other close relatives. The president of the Srebrenica Mothers’ Association pauses for a long time in front of the display stand. “I represent all the mothers who lost their children in the genocide, all those whose dreams were shattered by this tragedy,” she declares.
War in the Balkans
The war that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia claimed more than 100,000 lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995, most of them Bosnian Muslims, and displaced more than two million people. People were rounded up and placed in concentration camps, thousands of Bosnian women were systematically raped: the list of atrocities is endless, but Srebrenica became the darkest page of the war.
Genocide in Srebrenica
In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army seized Srebrenica, previously declared a “security zone” by the UN, and brutally murdered some 8,000 men and teenagers from the area. The Organization was unable to prevent this genocide because the small and lightly armed contingent of Dutch peacekeepers was unable to resist the Serb units in Bosnia. It was the worst massacre in Europe since the Holocaust. Twenty thousand more people were expelled from their city.
The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia recognized the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica by the Republika Srpska army as an act of genocide.
Mothers of Srebrenica Association
The Mothers of Srebrenica Association was founded in 2002 and united thousands of people: mothers, sisters and wives who had lost loved ones. For more than twenty years, the organization has been searching for missing persons, mass graves, trying to identify all victims and dead, supporting survivors and seeking justice. “We want the whole world to know that we have survived, that we have not forgotten anything. We will fight so that all criminals receive what they deserve,” says Munira Subasich.
international justice
In 2017, the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic to life imprisonment for crimes of genocide, violations of the laws and customs of war, and crimes against humanity committed between 1992 and 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The judges found that, for three years, the military under Mladic’s command carried out a deliberate campaign of murder, torture and expulsion of the Muslim and Croat populations of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Among these crimes are the Srebrenica massacres.
“Those who tried to defend their homes were met with brutal violence. Mass shootings were carried out, some people were beaten to death,” said Tribunal Judge Alphons Orie in announcing the verdict. “The crimes committed are among the most heinous acts known. They include genocide and extermination, which is a crime against humanity,” he added.
Lawsuit against the Dutch government
“The Mothers of Srebrenica”, as Subasic told UN News, also filed a lawsuit against the Dutch government and the Defense Ministry, accusing the authorities of failing to protect the residents of the “security zone”, and they won.
“The Dutch government recognized the court’s decision, assumed its responsibility and actively participated in financial support for the survivors of the genocide. The lives of our children are priceless, no one can give them back to us, but we are working for justice to be done,” he said.
identification of remains
Kada Hotic, a member of the Mothers of Srebrenica Association, has dedicated her life to the search for the disappeared and the identification of their remains. “It took us years to find just two bones from my son’s remains,” she said. DNA tests confirmed they were his, and later we were able to find my brother’s remains as well. Again, it was just some skeletal fragments, but we buried them properly.”
According to Hotich, the vast majority of the disappeared were found dead in huge mass graves. The last time she saw her husband was in July 1995. As they tried to board a bus together during deportation, a uniformed man led him out of line with a gun to his throat.
“He had our belongings in his hands, everything we had managed to take with us, and I have not seen him since. And they took us, women and children, by bus to Tuzla, but on the way the bus stopped and the soldiers burst in. They exposed their genitals and yelled at us ‘these are your weapons against us’. We tried to protect the children in some way so they wouldn’t see this horror,” Hotich says.
Psychological traumas
The genocide not only consists of thousands of deaths and disappearances, but also of deep psychological trauma for hundreds of thousands of survivors. According to Munira, the Srebrenica genocide left some 5,500 minors without one or both parents. Family members and loved ones of many of these children were raped and killed.
“The members of our association were actively involved in raising these children, and many of them have become successful people despite their experiences, have received education and work as doctors, engineers and other professions,” says the head of the Asociation. “We wanted them to grow up with love, to feel that love, and we hope we have achieved that.”
Lessons from Srebrenica
“The Mothers of Srebrenica are still here, and it is extremely important because a genocide happened in Srebrenica 28 years ago. And their presence is a reminder of what should never happen again,” said Deputy Secretary General and Special Adviser for Crime Prevention. Genocide, Alice Nderitu.
“We still hear that there are people who deny the genocide, people who say that it did not happen. People who prepare statements, even a commission of inquiry, to try to prove that it did not happen,” he added.
He recalled that only the highest-ranking officials have been prosecuted, while grassroots perpetrators have not been punished, and today victims often live alongside those who murdered and raped their loved ones.
According to her, it is crucial that the UN help all those who have suffered this tragedy, which is why the General secretary he met personally with representatives of the Mothers of Srebrenica. Over the years, the United Nations has supported this organization.
hate speech
The Srebrenica genocide did not come out of nowhere; it was the result of years of discrimination and hostility, torture, kidnapping, systematic sexual violence and mass murder. All these crimes were preceded by the spread of hate speech.
“Never has genocide occurred without accompanying hate speech before and even after. This is why the Secretary-General in 2019 launched the UN Action Plan in his speech,” said Alice Nderitu.
“We hoped that with our mission we would ensure that no one else would have to go through the horrors of Srebrenica, through the genocide. But unfortunately, as I speak to you about this, a similar situation is developing in the Ukraine, Somalia and other places, and there people are being killed again,” said Munira Subasic.
