VIDEO: SREBRENICA SURVIVOR'S STORY

Srebrenica - a survivor's story (October 1995)

Channel 4 News talks to a survivor of the massacre of Bosniak men and boys after the fall of Srebrenica. Hurem Suljic describes how he survived the execution and also corroborates other accounts of General Ratko Mladic's presence during the killings. Please note: The killings in and around Srebrenica started in 1992 when Serb forces destroyed hundreds of Bosniak villages around Srebrenica and murdered nearly 1,000 Bosniaks in the municipality. The 1995 genocide was simply a culmination of horrendous massacres that Serb forces had been committing against the Bosniak people from 1992 to 1995. Watch video ↓

"I noticed that they were taking a man out - an older man and then I saw there were three of four of them standing on one side and three or four standing on the other. And so I stood at the door. I wanted to see what was going to happen to him. When he reached them, the one on the left had an iron rod. He hit them man on the back of the head and he fell. And another on the right hand side was standing there and with an axe he hit him across the spine. With the sharp edge. And so the axe sunk unto him and was left in him."

DO NOT FORGET: Srebrenica, how it all started?

In April 1992 (more than three years before the Srebrenica massacre), Serb forces -- with logistical and military help from Serbia -- began a widespread campaign of brutal "ethnic cleansing" of the Bosniak [Bosnian Muslim] population of Eastern Bosnia. Thousands of Bosniak refugees flocked to Srebrenica. They were forced to live in the besieged enclave with little or no means of survival and under brutal Serb attacks. Many starved to death. 

Serb Army stationed around Srebrenica never demilitarized, even though they were required to do so under the 1993 demilitarization agreement. In 1992 alone, approximately 100,000 Bosniaks had been expelled from their homes and at least 11,391 Bosniaks were killed by Serb forces in eastern Bosnia (source: Research & Documentation Centre in Sarajevo), while hundreds of Bosnian Muslim villages were destroyed around Srebrenica.

Serb forces stationed around Srebrenica constantly attacked neighbouring Bosniak villages and Srebrenica itself. They also bombarded Srebrenica from air with Serbian airplanes.

In July 1995 the Bosnian Serb army staged a brutal takeover of Srebrenica and its surrounding area, where they proceeded to perpetrate genocide. Bosnian Serb soldiers -- with military and logistical help from Serbia -- separated families, committed brutal rapes of many women and girls, and then forcibly expelled at least 20,000, while summarily executing 8,372 Bosniak men and teenage boys. Srebrenica genocide is remembered the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.