SREBRENICA 1992-95: FROM MASS MURDER TO GENOCIDE

Three years before the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide, Serb forces killed more than 3,000 Bosniak (Muslim) women, children and elderly around Srebrenica. The killings continued from April 1992 and up until the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995 when additional 8,000 men and boys were lined up and executed. In this April 15, 1993 file photo, a nurse tends to 12-year-old Sead Bekric in a hospital in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, after Serb attack on the elementary school in the besieged Srebrenica blinded him and killed dozens of youth and children. (Photo/Karsten Thielker)

The international courts have repeatedly ruled that the July 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica constituted Genocide. Nearly 500 children were killed in the Srebrenica massacre. The Hague Tribunal also ruled that genocide was committed in six other municipalities of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Prosecutor v Slobodan Milosevic, the Court rejected the defendant’s “motion for judgment of acquittal” and concluded that Genocide occurred in seven Bosnian municipalities. On 16 June 2004, the Court ruled:

“On the basis of the inference that may be drawn from this evidence, a Trial Chamber could be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that there existed a joint criminal enterprise, which included members of the Bosnian Serb leadership, whose aim and intention was to destroy a part of the Bosnian Muslim population, and that genocide was in fact committed in Brcko, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Srebrenica, Bijeljina, Kljuc and Bosanski Novi….”

According to Daniel Toljaga, expert member of Canadian Institute for the Research of Genocide, in the first three months of the Bosnian war and,

“More than three years before the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, Bosnian Serb nationalists – with the logistical, moral and financial support of Serbia and the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) – destroyed 296 predominantly Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) villages in the region around Srebrenica, forcibly uprooting some 70,000 Bosniaks from their homes and systematically massacring at least 3,166 Bosniaks including many women, children and the elderly.”

Hair braids and the remains of a Bosniak child in the Zaklopača mass grave. Bosnian Forensic experts Murat Hurtic, left, and Vedo Tuco, right, inspect body remains on mass-grave site in the village of Zaklopaca in the municipality of Vlasenica, adjoining to the municipality of Srebrenica, on May 12, 2004. Mass grave in Zaklopaca has been discovered by Bosnian Commission for Missing Persons and is considered to be secondary mass-grave containing bodies of 72 persons that were executed on 16 May 1992. Among 72 bodies, it is suspected that there are 16 children, age 3-16 and 10 women. The site is a so-called secondary grave, where bodies initially buried elsewhere were dumped. One of survivors of this massacre was Nihada Hodzic, interviewed by Daniel Toljaga at this link.

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Aftermath of the April 1993 Srebrenica Children Massacre. Photo shows a truck full of badly wounded Bosniak children who survived the Children Massacre at Srebrenica. Source: The US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

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Remains of a pregnant Bosniak woman (name: Zekira Begic-Hrustenbasic) and her unborn baby excavated from the mass grave Suha in Srebrenica region, near Bratunac. They were in May of 1992, more that three years before the Srebrenica genocide. Baby’sundeveloped head, fingers, and legs are clearly visible. The massacre was committed by Serb soldiers around Srebrenica in 1992, more than 3 years before the Srebrenica genocide. The mass grave Suha contained bodies of 30 Bosniak women and 8 children with the youngest child being 2 years old. Source: Human Rights NGO Truth for Justice, Tuzla.

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Approximately 500 children died in the Srebrenica Genocide according to the NGO “Women of Srebrenica”. (See list of all children in Bilten of Srebrenica #41). Source: “Women of Srebrenica”

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Twenty feet deep and a hundred feet long Pilica farm mas grave was excavated by forensic pathologists in 1996. Bosnian Genocide victims were blindfolded with hands tied behind their back before execution. Photo by Gilles Peress.
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Different types of ligatures were used to bind and then systematically execute 8,372 Srebrenica genocide victims in July 1995. The above is an example from PLC mass grave. Exhibit P129/67, Krstic trial. Photo courtesy: UN War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague, Netherlands.

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Exhumation site of Bosnian Genocide victims shows mounds of bodies in the Cancari Valley in eastern Bosnia near Srebrenica. 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were lined up and executed after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995. Source: International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

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Blindfolded Srebrenica genocide victim in the Kozluk primary grave. Exhibit P642.15, Milosevic trial. The 1995 Srebrenica massacre was the last major Serbian atrocity against the Bosniak people. Photo courtesy: UN War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague.

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Aerial (Satellite) view taken on 13 July 1995 showing a large group of Bosniak prisoners from Srebrenica awaiting execution. Buses used to transport the Bosniaks to the execution sites are clearly visible. Images taken by CIA spy drones and provided to the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague.

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