CALCULATING SREBRENICA DEAD: 8262 v. 8372 KILLED IN GENOCIDE

Bosnian Genocide: Photograph of a pile of bodies of killed Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) at exhumation site KK03 543 in the Srebrenica massacre. Courtesy: The International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague, Popovic et al. trial, Exhibit P03899.

Author: Daniel Toljaga

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is charged with two counts of Genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague.

The first count of genocide covers the period from 31 March to 31 December 1992 in the territory of ten Bosnian municipalities: “Bratunac, Brcko, Foca, Kljuc, Kotor Varos, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Visegrad, Vlasenica and Zvornik.” The second count of genocide refers to the period from July to November 1995 and the “killing over
 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys of Srebrenica through both organised and opportunistic executions.” 

In the judgment of of ‘Popović et al.’, the Court stressed that “Graves continue to be discovered and exhumed to this day, and the number of identified individuals will rise. The Trial Chamber therefore considers that the number could well be as high as 7,826.” 

On April 10 2012,  a member of directors of the Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina was called to testify. Amor Masovic provided updated information on the number of dead in Srebrenica and explained some discrepancies in the calculation of Srebrenica victims. He was examined by prosecutor Ann Sutherland.

Q. Can you tell us very briefly: In your opinion, how many people died in Srebrenica?

A. I will give you a few pieces of information. On the memorial plaque in Potocari, there are 8.372 names of the people whose death is connected with the events in Srebrenica and later with the events in Zepa. Of course, those who perished in Zepa is significantly lower. So the total number is 8.372. In the Institute for Missing Persons, we have information about 8.262 individuals whose fate and whose death is connected with Srebrenica in 1995. The International Commission for Missing Persons who is in charge pursuant to an international agreement that it signed with the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina of identifying all the exhumed victims, their estimate is that the number of the missing or those killed was 8.100, and they reached this figure on the basis of blood samples that they had received from families. I don’t know if anyone produced this figure before. I did because I’m aware of that information, being a member of the managing board. The ICRC collected more than 22.000 blood samples from family members of the people from Srebrenica. These 22.000 blood samples relate to a total of 7.800 people who went missing in Srebrenica, and I think that the exact number is 7.787. However, nowadays in the ICMP, there’s more than 160 DNA reports that do not match with a single blood sample out of the 22.000. What does that mean? That means that there are families in Srebrenica who either didn’t provide blood samples, or that there is not a single survivor from this family who could provide a blood sample, which means that either all of them were killed during the events in Srebrenica or that quite simply this family has no survivors left. If you take the figure of 7.787 and if you add, I think, 166 of those who were exhumed from mass graves where the Srebrenica victims were found but for whom no matches were found, a total number is about 8.000. And as I said, the estimate of ICMP is that 8.100 people disappeared during the events in Srebrenica in 1995. And in my view, I think that this estimate is the closest to figure of 8.262 which is the number that our institute operates with. / ICTY /

Update (4 May 2012): According to demographic expert Dr Ewa Tabeau who recently testified at the trial of Radovan Karadzic, the number of persons whose disappearance is related to the fall of Srebrenica and Zepa in the summer of 1995 currently stands at 8,021. Of that number, 116 persons are related to the fall of Zepa and the remaining 7,905 persons are linked with the fall of Srebrenica. To this day, 6,241 victims have been identified using DNA analysis.