SREBRENICA NUMBERS (QUICK FACTS)
Page last updated: 9 July 2010.
Some forty-thousand [40,000] Bosniaks were targeted for extinction in Srebrenica, according to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (source). More than 8,000 were executed, while approximately 30,000 were forcibly expelled from the enclave in a massive scale ethnic cleansing campaign.
The most up to date research results come from the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). Of 8,372 victims of the Srebrenica genocide, who died in July of 1995, 6481 have been identified through DNA forensic technology conducted by the ICMP. However, the ICMP's analysis of blood-samples support an estimate of 8,100 victims killed in July 1995.
posted by Srebrenica Genocide at 6:40 PM
5 Comments:
Bosnia and the whole world must never forget these people, and how and why they died.
I learned about the White House's initial softness on the genocide in the Balkans after reading WAR IN A TIME OF PEACE: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals by David Halberstam.
This article is in German, but even using babelfish-it was one of the best summaries of the RDC's findings for the entire country.
http://www.faz.net/s/RubDDBDABB9457A437BAA85A49C26FB23A0/
Doc~ED911C0E9D68B48508DD3169819AEDC9E~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
Understandably, the total numbers, ethnic division has been getting the most attention-but the RDC data also has stats that point to other trends that has gotten much less attention.
One, is the gendered aspects of the atrocities. Even excluding military casualties, the overwhelming number of total civilian casualties %76.40 according to page 18 of "Civilians" were male.
Yet, this trend has seemignly been ignored by local & international media, NGOs and observers (with some notable exceptions-such as Adam Jones-see www.gendercide.org). Even the RDC-while they had a separate study on children & female victims, had no seprate study on male victims-even though-as the stats clearly show, adult male civilians were more vulnerable to killings than other groups. I'm sort of hoping, that these numbers from the RDC and similar organizations will give even more statistical proof of the specific vulnerability of male civilians during war time-a subject that has been either ignored or brushed under the table.
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Trying to find the most statitically accurate account of how many people were killed is an ineviable task; but it is necessary in order to prevent wild exaggerations in either direction. (And even then that doesn't prevent manipulations or misinterpretations of the data).
As your own article points out, the RDC has recieved much acclaim from international experts on their methodology and database. But, even the most scrupuliously researched database can never be 100& accurate-to the exact number.
Each person on the database is confirmed missing/deceased by at least two sources.
Even excluding people who died of "secondary" war causes-accidents, war related suicides, lack of provisions; there are also people who might not be accounted for because they had no surviving relatives to declare them missing. Related to this issue, is that of mass graves. This issue is particularly accute when it comes to Srebrenica-and the deliberate effort to conceal what occured by burying and reburying the bodies.
I don't make these points to dismiss the RDC's research-just the opposite, they appear to be a thorough, professional organization-and the number of international NGOs, and Balkan human rights groups, staticians, ICTY trial chambers/prosecutors who either aid or use the RDC's research is evidence of this. And while I'm certainly no expert, and am limited to what reading English language articles-I've been impressed with what I have read about the RDC and their work.
I make these points to point out the obvious: That numbers (and we should not forget that each one represents a human being) are not the entire story-and should not be interpreted as the end all be all account of what occured. Stats and data can perhaps aid, but numbers strictly by themselves can neither prove nor disprove genocide, crimes against humanity, etc. Other aspects of the RDC's database, such as oral history, eyewitness accounts, reports, documentations, multimedia all can give a more complete version of what occured. In many ways, the RDC's data simply gives statistical confirmaion to many major points made in the UN Committee of experts report, Mazowiecki reports, etc.
And even all of the data, stats, reports, and even oral histories and personal accounts can only given an outsider like myself a sliver of knowledge of the horror.
Hi Taras;
I also read War In A Time of Peace and thought it was an insightful overview of foreign policy during Bush Sr. & Clinton's presidency. David Halberstram is an excellent journalist-he also wrote books on the civil rights movement as well.
Another book you might be interested in is "A Problem From Hell: America in the Age of Genocide" by Samantha Power.
What about 3228 Serbs brutally slaughtered in and around Srebrenica by Muslim forces from ’92 to ‘95? Are they included in your numbers or you do not count them at all?
Anthony H.
@ Anthony H:
From 1992-95 there were around 480 Serb casualties around Srebrenica – not “thousands." Of this figure, 329 were Serb soldiers and paramilitary thugs that participated in massacres, rapes, and ethnic cleansing of predominantly Bosniak ethnic territory of Eastern Bosnia. The "massacre" by definition is "a brutal slaughter of a large number of people." Individual Serb victims who died in the crossfire between Serbian Chetniks and the regular forces of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina do not qualify as the 'victims of massacres.' There were no massacres of Serbian people in the villages around Srebrenica. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found no evidence of any massacres of Serbs around Srebrenica. Milivoje Ivanisevic (who is on record for denying the Srebrenica genocide) claimed that forces under the command of Naser Oric massacred 3,500 Serbs around Srebrenica. However, according to the Hague Tribunal, these figures do not reflect reality. In fact, the figures of the individual Serb casualties around Srebrenica are proven to be 9 to 10 times lower than reported by the Serbian ultra-nationalist sources. Ivanisevic is a discredited Serbian propagandist. Check your sources before you quote them.
You can read more in this research article. For more facts, just use the custom search box located in the top left corner and search for specific information.
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