The Srebrenica massacre, also known as Srebrenica genocide, was the July 1995 killing of at least 8,000 [1] Bosniak males, ranging in age from teenagers to the elderly, in the region of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of general Ratko Mladić. In addition to the Army of Republika Srpska, special state security forces of Serbia known as the "Scorpions" participated in the massacre. [2] The United Nations had previously declared Srebrenica a UN protected "safe area" and 400 armed Dutch peacekeepers were present at the time, but they did not prevent the massacre. [3] The massacre included several instances where preteen children and women were killed.[4] While the exact number killed will never be known, the list of people missing or killed in Srebrenica compiled by the Federal Commission of Missing Persons so far includes 8,373 names.[5]
The Srebrenica massacre is the largest mass murder in Europe since WWII and it is the first legally established case of genocide in Europe. [6] In the unanimous landmark ruling "Prosecutor v. Krstic", the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ruled that the Srebrenica massacre was an act of genocide stating in its judgement:
- "By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims [Bosniaks], the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity." [7]
Background
The conflict in eastern Bosnia
- See also Bosnian War
Bosnia began its journey to independence with a parliamentary declaration of sovereignty on October 15, 1991. The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was recognized by the European Community on April 6, 1992, and by the United States the following day. International recognition did not end the matter, however, and a fierce struggle for territorial control ensued among the three major groups in Bosnia: Bosniak, Serb and Croat. The international community made various attempts to establish peace, but their success was very limited. In the Eastern part of Bosnia, close to Serbia, the conflict was particularly fierce between the Serbs and the Bosniaks.
1992 ethnic cleansing campaign
Serbs intended to preserve Bosnia and Herzegovina as a component part of the former state. They believed that the area of Central Podrinje (Srebrenica region) had a primary strategic importance for them. Without the area of Central Podrinje, which was predominantly Bosniak ethnic territory, there would be no territorial integrity within their new political entity of Republika Srpska. The Serbs did not want to accept the Bosniak enclave within their planned territories, because the territory would be split in two and it would be separated from Serbia proper and from areas in eastern Herzegovina which were primarily inhabited by Serb population.[8]
To achieve this aim, they proceeded with ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks from Bosniak ethnic territories in Eastern Bosnia and Central Podrinje with the aim of linking it to Serbian territory. In the neighbouring Bratunac, for example, the Bosniaks were either killed or forced to flee to Srebrenica. According to Bosnian government data, 1,156 Bosniaks were killed in these attacks (3,156 total during the entire war). [9]
About 762 Bosniaks had been killed in Zvornik on 1 June 1992. A similar massacre had taken place in Cerska on 9 September 1992, when a group of 6,000 refugees from Konjevic Polje, Cerska and Kamenica tried to reach Tuzla -- the VRS had laid ambushes and opened fire on the column, killing many and taking hundreds of prisoners, who then "disappeared". Some 500 people were killed close to Snagovo, as the moving column came under fire from artillery and aircraft. Human remains were still to be seen as the column of July 1995 passed on its way to Tuzla.[10]
Surrounding Serb villages were used as bases to attack Srebrenica on a daily basis from day one, as concluded by ICTY. [11]
Struggle for Srebrenica
In spite of Srebrenica’s predominantly Bosniak population, Serb military and paramilitary forces from the area and neighboring parts of eastern Bosnia gained control of the town for several weeks early in 1992. In May 1992, however, Bosnian government forces under the leadership of Naser Orić managed to recapture Srebrenica. Over the next several months, Orić and his men pressed outward in a series of counter-offensives and raids. By September 1992, Bosnian forces from Srebrenica had linked up with those in Žepa, a Bosniak-held town to the south of Srebrenica. By January 1993, the enclave had been further expanded to include the Bosnian-held enclave of Cerska located to the west of Srebrenica. At this time the Srebrenica enclave reached its peak size of 900 square kilometres, although it was never linked to the main area of Bosnian-held land in the west and remained a vulnerable island amid Serb-controlled territory [12]
In January 1993, Bosnian forces attacked the Serb village of Kravica. ICTY blame Oric and his forces for killing Serb civilians from villages around Srebrenica during those raids, including the so-called "Bloody Christmas" massacre of January 1993, when dozens of women and children died in the village of Kravice, as concluded by ICTY. [11]. Over the next few months, however, the reorganized Serb military launched a large-scale offensive, eventually capturing the villages of Konjević Polje and Cerska, severing the link between Srebrenica and Žepa and reducing the size of the Srebrenica enclave to 150 square kilometres. Bosniak residents of the outlying areas converged on Srebrenica town and its population swelled to between 50,000 and 60,000 people. During this military activity, there were reports of civilian casualties on both sides.
General Philippe Morillon of France, the Commander of the United Nations (UN) Protection Force (UNPROFOR) visited Srebrenica in March 1993. By then the town was overcrowded and siege conditions prevailed. There was almost no running water as the advancing Serb forces had destroyed the town’s water supplies. People relied on makeshift generators for electricity. Food, medicine and other essentials were extremely scarce. Before leaving, General Morillon told the panicked residents of Srebrenica at a public gathering that the town was under the protection of the UN and that he would never abandon them.
Between March and April 1993 several thousand Bosniaks were evacuated from Srebrenica under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The evacuations were opposed by the Bosnian government in Sarajevo as contributing to the ethnic cleansing of predominantly Bosniak territory.
The Serb authorities remained intent on capturing the enclave, which, because of its proximity to the Serbian border and because it was entirely surrounded by Serb-held territory, was both strategically important and vulnerable to capture. On April 13, 1993, the Serbs told the UNHCR representatives that they would attack the town within two days unless the Bosniaks surrendered. [13] Bosniaks refused to surrender.
"Srebrenica safe area"
April 1993: the Security Council declares Srebrenica a “safe area”
On April 16, 1993, the United Nations Security Council responded by passing resolution 819, declaring that: all parties and others concerned treat Srebrenica and its surroundings as a safe area which should be free from any armed attack or any other hostile act".[14]
The Security Council created two other UN protected enclaves at the same time: Žepa and Goražde. On April 18, 1993, the first group of UNPROFOR troops arrived in Srebrenica.
Serb forces from surrounding Serb villages continued to attack Srebrenica even after Srebrenica became a "Safe Haven", as concluded by ICTY. [11]
While the Bosnian defenders of Srebrenica largely demilitarized, as confirmed by UN conclusions, the Serb forces surrounding the enclave were well armed and refused to honor their part of the demilitarization agreement. [15] The Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) was organized on a geographic basis and Srebrenica fell within the domain of the Drina Corps. Between 1,000 and 2,000 soldiers from three Drina Corps Brigades were deployed around the enclave. These Serb forces were equipped with tanks, armored vehicles, artillery and mortars. The unit of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) that remained in the enclave – the 28th Mountain Division - was neither well organised nor equipped. A firm command structure and communications system was lacking, some ARBiH soldiers carried old hunting rifles or no weapons at all and few had proper uniforms.
From the outset, both parties to the conflict violated the “safe area” agreement. The ICTY Trial Chamber heard evidence of a deliberate Serb strategy of preventing access by international aid convoys into the enclave. Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Karremans (the Dutchbat Commander) testified that his personnel were prevented from returning to the enclave by Serb forces and that equipment and ammunition were also prevented from getting in. [16] Essentials, like food, medicine and fuel, became increasingly scarce. Bosniaks in Srebrenica complained of attacks by Serb soldiers. Insofar as the ARBiH is concerned, General Halilović testified that, immediately after signing the “safe area” agreement, he ordered members of the ARBiH in Srebrenica to pull all armed personnel and military equipment out of the newly established demilitarized zone, which they largely did. Although Serbs were attacking and killing Bosniak civilians in and around Srebrenica daily, to the Serbs it appeared that Bosnian forces in Srebrenica were using the “safe area” as a convenient base from which to launch counter-offensives against the VRS and that UNPROFOR was failing to take any action to prevent it. [16] General Halilovic admitted that Bosnian helicopters had flown in violation of the no-fly zone and that he had personally dispatched eight helicopters with ammunition for the 28th Division. In moral terms, he did not see it as a violation of the “safe area” agreement given that the Bosniaks were so poorly armed to begin with.
Early 1995: the situation in the Srebrenica “safe area” deteriorates
By early 1995, fewer and fewer supply convoys were making it through to the enclave. The Dutchbat soldiers who had arrived in January 1995 watched the situation deteriorate rapidly in the months after their arrival. The already meagre resources of the civilian population dwindled further and even the UN forces started running dangerously low on food, medicine, fuel and ammunition. Eventually, the UN peacekeepers had so little fuel that they were forced to start patrolling the enclave on foot; Dutchbat soldiers who went out of the area on leave were not allowed to return[17] and their number dropped from 600 to 400 men. In March and April, the Dutch soldiers noticed a build-up of Serb forces near two of the observation posts, "OP Romeo" and "OP Quebec".
Spring 1995: the Serbs plan to attack the Srebrenica “safe area”
In March 1995, Radovan Karadžić, President of Republika Srpska (“RS”), in spite of the international community pressure to end the war and the ongoing efforts to negotiate a peace agreement, issued a directive to the VRS concerning the long-term strategy of the VRS forces in the enclave. The directive, known as “Directive 7”, specified that the VRS was to:
Complete the physical separation of Srebrenica from Žepa as soon as possible, preventing even communication between individuals in the two enclaves. By planned and well-thought out combat operations, create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica. [18]
Just as envisaged in this decree, by mid 1995, the humanitarian situation of the Bosniak civilians and military personnel in the enclave was catastrophic. In early July 1995, a series of reports issued by the 28th Division reflected the urgent pleas of the ARBiH forces in the enclave for the humanitarian corridor to be deblocked and, when this failed, the tragedy of Bosniak civilians dying from starvation.
6-11 July 1995: the take-over of Srebrenica
Serbs entered the UN Safe Area in July 1995. By the evening of July 9, 1995, the VRS Drina Corps entered four kilometres deep into the enclave, halting just one kilometre short of Srebrenica town. Late on 9 July 1995, emboldened by this success and the lack of resistance from largely demilitarized Bosniaks as well as the absence of any significant reaction from the international community, President Karadžić issued a new order authorising the VRS Drina Corps to capture the town of Srebrenica. [16]
On the morning of July 10, 1995, the situation in Srebrenica town was tense. Residents crowded the streets. Lieutenant-Colonel Karremans sent urgent requests for NATO air support to defend the town, but no assistance was forthcoming until around 2:30PM on July 11, 1995, when NATO bombed VRS tanks advancing towards the town. NATO planes also attempted to bomb VRS artillery positions overlooking the town, but had to abort the operation due to poor visibility. NATO plans to continue the air strikes were abandoned following Serb Army's threats to kill Dutch troops being held in the custody of the VRS, as well as threats to shell the UN Potočari compound on the outside of the town, and surrounding areas, where 20,000 to 30,000 civilians had fled. [16]
The Dutch soldiers operating under the auspices of the United Nations have been described as "cowards" for their part in failing to protect the Bosniak refugees, with some soldiers reportedly sharing "cups of coffee" with Serb troops. Commander Thomas Karremans, who was in charge of Dutch troops in Srebrenica at the time, was filmed drinking a toast with war-crimes suspect and Serb general Ratko Mladic, during the bungled negotiations on the fate of civilian population grouped in Potočari. [19] On the other hand hand, the UN soldiers felt abandoned by their command in Sarajevo, and they were already taken virtual or even actual hostage by Serb troops. One Dutch soldier was killed by a grenade lobbed from a column of retreating Bosniak soldiers; he was the only fatal Dutch casualty in Srebrenica.
The massacre
The crowd at Potočari
The UN neglected to protect the Bosniak civilians in Srebrenica as mandated in the UN resolution. One hundred lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers were denied repeated requests for reinforcements and consequently sidelined to witness what was to follow. Faced with the reality that Srebrenica had fallen under the control of Serb forces, thousands of Bosniak residents from Srebrenica fled to the nearby hamlet of Potočari seeking protection within the UN compound. By the evening of July 11, 1995, approximately 20,000 to 25,000 Bosniak refugees were gathered in Potočari. Several thousand had pressed inside the UN compound itself, while the rest were spread throughout the neighboring factories and fields. Though the vast majority were women, children, elderly or disabled, 63 witnesses estimated that there were at least 300 men inside the perimeter of the UN compound and between 600 and 900 men in the crowd outside. [20]
11–13 July 1995: the humanitarian crisis in Potočari
Conditions in Potočari were deplorable. There was very little food or water available and the July heat was stifling. One of the Dutchbat officers described the scene as follows:
They were panicked, they were scared, and they were pressing each other against the soldiers, my soldiers, the UN soldiers that tried to calm them. People that fell were trampled on. It was a chaotic situation. [16]
12–13 July: crimes committed in Potočari
On July 12, 1995, as the day wore on, the already miserable physical conditions were compounded by an active campaign of terror, which increased the panic of the residents, making them frantic to leave. The refugees in the compound could see Serb soldiers setting houses and haystacks on fire. Throughout the afternoon, Serb soldiers mingled in the crowd. Summary executions of men and women occurred. [16]
In the late morning of 12 July, a witness saw a pile of 20 to 30 bodies heaped up behind the Transport Building in Potočari, alongside a tractor-like machine. Another testified that, at around 12:00 hours, he saw a soldier slay a child with a knife in the middle of a crowd of expellees. He also said that he saw Serb soldiers execute more than a hundred Bosniak men in the area behind the Zinc Factory and then load their bodies onto a truck, although the number and methodical nature of the murders attested to by this witness stand in contrast to other evidence on the Trial Record that indicates that the killings in Potočari were sporadic in nature. [16]
That night, a Dutchbat medical orderly witnessed a rape:
We saw two Serb soldiers, one of them was standing guard and the other one was lying on the girl, with his pants off. And we saw a girl lying on the ground, on some kind of mattress. There was blood on the mattress, even she was covered with blood. She had bruises on her legs. There was even blood coming down her legs. She was in total shock. She went totally crazy." [16]
Throughout the night and early the next morning, stories about the rapes and killings spread through the crowd and the terror in the camp escalated [16].
The separation of the Bosniak men in Potočari
From the morning of 12 July, Serb forces began gathering men from the refugee population in Potočari and holding them in separate locations. Further, as the Bosniak refugees began boarding the buses, Serb soldiers systematically separated out men of military age who were trying to clamber aboard. Occasionally, younger and older men were stopped as well. These men were taken to a building in Potočari referred to as the “White House”. As the buses carrying the women, children and elderly headed north towards Bosnian-held territory, they were stopped along the way and again screened for men. As early as the evening of 12 July 1995, Major Franken of the Dutchbat heard that no men were arriving with the women and children at their destination in Kladanj [16].
On 13 July 1995, the Dutchbat troops witnessed definite signs that the Serbs were executing some of the Bosniak men who had been separated. For example, Corporal Vaasen saw two soldiers take a man behind the "White House". He then heard a shot and the two soldiers reappeared alone. Another Dutchbat officer saw Serb soldiers execute an unarmed man with a single gunshot to the head. He also heard gunshots 20–40 times an hour throughout the afternoon. When the Dutchbat soldiers told Colonel Koseph Kingori, a United Nations Military Observer (UNMO) in the Srebrenica area, that men were being taken behind the "White House" and not coming back, Colonel Kingori went to investigate. He heard gunshots as he approached, but was stopped by Serb soldiers before he could find out what was going on. [16]
The deportation of women and children
Serbian TV footage shows women and children being separated from the men and put on buses. As a show of reassurance then Serb commander-in-chief General Ratko Mladic told the women everyone would be taken by bus out and safely reunited with the men later [21]
However when the cameras were turned off the men were killed at the hands of the Serb army. More than 60 truckloads were taken from Srebrenica to execution sites where they were bound, blindfolded, and shot with automatic rifles. [21] Some of the executions were carried out at night under arc lights. Industrial bulldozers then pushed the bodies into mass graves. [21] Some were buried alive - Jean-Rene Ruez, a French policeman who collected evidence from Bosniaks, told The Hague tribunal in 1996. He gave evidence that Serb forces had killed and tortured refugees at will. Streets were littered with corpses, he said, and rivers were red with blood. Many people committed suicide to avoid having their noses, lips and ears chopped off, he said. Among other lurid accounts of mass murder, Ruez cited cases of adults being forced to kill their children or watching as soldiers ended the young lives. "One soldier approached a woman in the middle of a crowd," he said. "Her child was crying. The soldier asked why the child was crying and she explained that he was hungry. The soldier made a comment like, 'He won't be hungry anymore.' He slit the child's throat in front of everybody."[21]
As a result of exhaustive UN negotiations with Serb troops, Srebrenica women were forcibly transferred to the Government-controlled territory (around 25,000 - as stated by ICTY prosecutors).[22]
Some buses never reached the safety. For example, according to the witness accounts given by Srebrenica massacre survivor - Kadir Habibović - who hid himself on one of the first buses taking women and children from the Dutch UN base in Potočari to Kladanj, "Habibović saw at least one vehicle full of Bosniak women being driven away from Bosnian government-held territory." [23] One of his captors at one point complained that they were not getting a good choice of the Bosniak women from Srebrenica [23]. Habibović said the men were taken to a remote location near Rasica Gai late in the evening. When the first group was taken from the truck and shot, he said he leapt from the truck and tumbled down a nearby slope; gunfire from the soldiers missed him and he escaped. He reached government-held territory on August 20, 1995.
Hague officials say that the tribunal's progress in dealing with rape has come from three factors - the courage of the victims and witnesses who testified, the tenacity of the prosecuting lawyers, and the years of tireless lobbying by pressure groups. The breakthrough came when prosecutors established that these rapes were entirely foreseeable. [24] Judges agreed that the generals in charge should have reasonably predicted that, under these conditions, the sexual assaults were likely. It was concluded that any rapes that took place in Srebrenica were therefore the fault of the commanders. [24]
The column of Bosniak men
As the situation in Potočari escalated towards crisis on the evening of 11 July 1995, word spread through the Bosniak community that the able-bodied men should take to the woods, form a column together with members of the 28th Division of the Army of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and attempt a breakthrough towards Bosnian-held territory in the north.
At around 2200 hours on the evening of 11 July 1995, the division command, together with the Bosniak municipal authorities of Srebrenica, made the decision to form the column. The young men were afraid they would be killed if they fell into Serb hands in Potočari and believed that they stood a better chance of surviving by trying to escape through the woods to Tuzla. The column gathered near the villages of Jaglici and Šušnjari and began to trek north. Witnesses estimated that there were between 10,000 and 15,000 men in the retreating column. Around 5,000 of the men in the column were active military personnel from the 28th Division, although not all of the soldiers were armed; others included able-bodied men of military age, the political leaders of the enclave, the medical staff of the local hospital and family members of those who had played some prominent part in life within the enclave.
A second and somewhat smaller group of refugees attempted to escape into Serbia via Mount Kvarac via Bratunac, or across the River Drina and via Bajina Basta. According to the Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade, this group numbered some 700, although the organization Women of Srebrenica estimated that approximately 800 men had crossed the Drina on the way to Serbia. It is not known how many were intercepted, arrested and killed on the way.
A third group headed for Žepa, possibly having first tried to reach Tuzla. The size of this group is not known. Furthermore, not all the names of those who actually reached Žepa were recorded. The estimates of the numbers involved therefore vary widely, from 300 to around 850. The only firm figures in existence are provided by a report stating that 25 civilians arrived in Žepa on 16 July along with 82 soldiers of the 28th Division.
Apparently, small pockets of resistance had also remained behind in the former enclave. On 13 July ABiH source learned this from communications made by a VRS officer in the enclave and intercepted by the ABiH. There was still some shooting going on there, but the ABiH within the enclave had no lines of defense left. They had been chased into one small area comprising two or three mountain tops. The VRS officer then instructed these remaining resistance fighters to reveal themselves and surrender.
The Tuzla column departs
By far the largest group was that which followed the notorious route towards Tuzla through the forests and mountains. The journey to Tuzla - a distance of 55 kilometres as the crow flies-entailed crossing extremely hilly terrain in the height of the summer heat. In general, each individual had started out with enough rations for only two days, everyone having a just little bread and sugar; shortages began to become apparent on the third day, whereupon the people had to turn to leaves, grass and snails for sustenance. Alongside under-nourishment, the high summer temperatures caused dehydration; finding sources of drinking water or moisture became a major problem. The enormous difficulties caused by hunger and thirst were further compounded by lack of sleep and the sheer effort required. Soon after setting out, the men faced a choice between acceding to the VRS call to give themselves up or carrying on. The latter option would inevitably entail ongoing armed conflict with the VRS which would in turn bring much death and destruction. Some people began to show symptoms of severe mental distress. Some turned on others, killing them outright. Others committed suicide.
There was little cohesion or sense of common purpose in the column. This would have been difficult to achieve given that the string of people stretched back several kilometres. Depending on the situation at any given moment, the column could be anything between five and ten kilometres in length. This made it a particularly easy target for the VRS and contributed much to a gnawing sense of uncertainty regarding the fate of friends and family elsewhere in the column. Many people in the column had been exhausted even before setting out on the march, following the siege of Srebrenica, the fighting with the VRS, the lack of food and the arduous conditions in general. The vast majority of the people from Srebrenica later reported as missing were among the 10,000 to 15,000 people who undertook this perilous journey.
An advance reconnaissance party went on ahead of the column proper; this group comprised four guides who set out one hour before the column and maintained a lead of approximately five kilometres throughout the journey. Next, there was a group comprising 50 to 100 of the best soldiers from each brigade, each carrying the best available equipment. Next in line was the 281st Brigade; all these men were originally from Cerska, Konjevic Polje and Kamenica, they knew the terrain. The rest of the column followed at some distance. In order, there was the reconnaissance unit of the 28th Division, the 280th Brigade from Gornji Potocari, the division command, the wounded, the medical staff, the 281st Brigade, the 283rd Brigade, the Glogova independent battalion, and at the rear was the weakest and least heavily armed Brigade, the 282nd. Each brigade took a group of refugees under its wing. Notably, the best troops were all at the front of the column; here too were the elite of the enclave, including the mother and sister of Naser Orić and other prominent persons. Many civilians joined the military units spontaneously and acquaintances went along with the troops, and there were many shifts and changes of allegiance as the journey got under way.
The men's breakout from the enclave and their attempts to reach Tuzla came as a surprise to the VRS and caused considerable confusion, as the VRS had expected the men to go to Potočari. Serb general and indicted war-criminal Milan Gvero in a briefing described the column as "hardened and violent criminals who will stop at nothing to prevent being taken prisoner and to enable their escape into Bosnian territory." The Drina Corps and the various brigades were ordered to devote all available manpower to the task of finding, stopping, disarming and taking prisoner the men of the column.
At around midnight on 11 July 1995, the main column started moving along the axis between Konjević Polje and Bratunac. On 12 July 1995, Serb forces launched an artillery fire on the column that was crossing an asphalt road between the area of Konjević Polje and Nova Kasaba on route to Tuzla. Only about one third of the men successfully made it across the asphalt road and the column was split in two parts. Heavy shooting and shelling continued against the remainder of the column throughout the day and during the night. Men from the rear of the column who survived this ordeal described it as a "man hunt". Witnesses have since stated that the shooting began as one group of refugees entered a minefield.
Ambush at Kamenica Hill
Around 8 p.m., when most of the marchers had finally reached the hilly area around Kamenica and the front of the column had already begun to move on, those still at Kamenica Hill were ambushed by Serb forces, who started shelling and firing from all directions. As many of the marchers had been shelled en route to Kamenica Hill and as a result were very nervous, the ambush caused great panic and chaos. Those who were armed returned fire, apparently at random. All scattered.
Survivors recalled that a group of at least a thousand Bosniaks were engaged at close range by small arms. Hundreds appear to have been killed as they fled the clearing. The skeletalized remains of some of those killed in this ambush remained clearly visible to ICTY investigators and United Nations staff members passing through in 1996. Survivors recalled how many wounded were left behind, some of whom shot themselves or detonated grenades in order to escape capture. Some of the wounded were carried on with the survivors, later surrendering. As the foremost group of the column continued on its way, the rear lost contact and panic broke out once more.
Many people remained in the Kamenica Hill area for a number of days, unable to move on, the column having been cut in two where it crossed an asphalt road, with the remaining part’s escape route blocked by Serb forces. Thousands of Bosniaks were captured by or surrendered to Serb forces. In many instances, assurances of safety were provided to the refugees by Serb military personnel wearing stolen UN uniforms and by Bosniaks who had been captured and ordered to summon their friends and family members from the woods. There are also reports that Serb forces used megaphones to call on the marchers to surrender, telling them that they would be exchanged for Serb soldiers held captive by Bosniak forces. Furthermore, there were rumours that VRS personnel in civilian dress had infiltrated the column at Kamenica. Human Rights Watch reported that the use of mind-altering chemical weapons like BZ "cannot be ruled out" (HRW, 1998). On the other hand, the Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD) concluded that "[t]here are no indications that the Serbs had combat gasses" (NIOD, 2002, App. III.3). However, NIOD Report's credibility is still questionable.[25]
Sandici massacre
Close to Sandici, on the main road from Bratunac to Konjević Polje, one witness recalls seeing the scene with which the rest of the world was later to become familiar from Zoran Petrović's video footage: the Serbs were forcing a Bosniak man to call others down from the mountains. Some 200 to 300 men followed his instructions and descended to meet the waiting VRS. The brother of the witness was among those who gave themselves up expecting that some exchange of prisoners would take place. The witness himself was more cautious and hid behind a tree to see what would happen next. He watched as the two to three hundred men below were lined up in seven ranks, each some forty metres in length, with their hands behind their heads. Then, they were mown down by machine gun fire. His own brother was among the victims, shot while he looked on.
During the search, the Bratunac Brigade discovered four children aged between 8 and 14 among the prisoners they took. They were taken to the barracks in Bratunac where they were placed in confinement; when one of them had described seeing a large number of ABiH soldiers committing suicide and shooting at each other, Brigade Commander Blagojević suggested that the Drina Corps' press unit should record this testimony on video. The fate of the boys remains uncertain. The VRS sent one of the civilians who wished to surrender back towards the column: one of his eyes had been gouged out, his ears had been cut off and a cross carved into his forehead. A small number of women and children, and a few elderly people who had been part of the column and who fell into Serb hands were allowed to join the buses which evacuated the women and children out of Potocari. Among them was Alma Delimustafić, a woman soldier of the 28th Brigade; at this time, Delimustafić was in civilian clothes and was released. [citation needed]
The central section of the column managed to escape the shooting and reached Kamenica at about 11.00 hours and waited there for the wounded. Captain Ejub Golić and the Independent Battalion turned back towards Hajdučko Groblje to help the casualties. A number of survivors from the rear, who managed to escape crossed the asphalt roads to the north or the west of the area, had joined those in the central section of the column.
The long trek to safety
The front of the column had already left Kamenica Hill by the time the ambush occurred. On July 12, its leaders sent out reconnaissance groups to scout out the route toward Burnice and then began to move. Heading for Mount Udrc, the marchers crossed the main asphalt road and subsequently forded the river Jadar. They reached the base of the mountain early on the morning of Thursday, July 13. Only an estimated about 5,000 people of the original group that had left Srebrenica arrived in Udrc. Here, the column regrouped. At first, it was decided to send 300 ABiH soldiers back in an attempt to break through the blockades. When reports came in that the central section of the column had nevertheless succeeded in crossing the road at Konjevic Polje, this plan was abandoned. Approximately 1000 men managed to reach Udrc that night.
From Udrc the marchers moved toward the River Drinjaka and on to Mount Velja Glava, continuing as darkness fell and through the night. Finding a Serb presence at Mount Velja Glava, where they arrived on Friday, July 14, the column was forced to skirt the mountain and wait on its slopes before it was able to move on toward Liplje and Marcici. Arriving at Marcici in the evening of July 14, the marchers were again ambushed near Snagovo by Serb forces equipped with anti-aircraft guns, artillery, and tanks. According to Lieutenant Džemail Bećirović, the column managed to break through the ambush and, in so doing, capture a VRS officer, Major Zoran Janković - providing the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a significant bargaining counter. This prompted an attempt at negotiating a cessation in the fighting, but negotiations with local Serb forces failed. Nevertheless, the act of repulsing the ambush had a positive effect on morale of the marchers, who also captured an amount of weapons and supplies.
The evening of 15 July saw the first radio contact between the 2nd Corps and the 28th Division, established using a Motorola walkie-talkie taken from the VRS. After initial distrust on the part of the 28th Division, the brothers Šabić were able to identify each other as they stood on either side of the VRS lines. Early on the morning, the column crossed the asphalt road linking Zvornik with Caparde and headed in the direction of Planinci, leaving a unit of some 100 to 200 armed marchers behind to wait for stragglers. It reached Krizevici later that day, and remained there while an attempt was made to negotiate with local Serb forces for safe passage through the Serb lines into Bosnian government controlled territory. The members of the column were advised to stay where they were, and to allow the Serb forces time to arrange for safe passage. It soon became apparent, though, that the small Serb force deployed in the area was only trying to gain time to organize a further attack on the marchers. In the area of Marcici-Crni the RS armed forces deployed 500 soldiers and policemen in order to stop the split part of column (about 2,500 people), which was moving from Glodi towards Marcici.
At this point, the column’s leaders decided to form several small groups of between 100 and 200 persons and send these to reconnoiter the way ahead. Early in the afternoon, the 2nd Corps and the 28th Division of the ABiH met each other in the village of Potocani. The presidium of Srebrenica were the first to reach Bosnian terrain.
The breakthrough at Baljkovica
The hillside at Baljkovica formed the last VRS line separating the column from Bosnian-held territory. The VRS cordon actually consisted of two lines, the first of which presented a front on the Tuzla side against the 2nd Corps and the other a front against the approaching 28th Division. At approximately 05.00 hours on 16 July, the 2nd Corps made its first attempt to break through the VRS cordon from the Bosnian side. The objective was to force a breakthrough close to the hamlets of Parlog and Resnik. They were joined by Naser Orić and a number of his men.
On the evening of July 15, a heavy hailstorm caused the Serb forces to take cover. The column’s advance group took advantage of this to attack the Serb rear lines at Baljkovica. During the fighting, the main body of what remained of the column began to move from Krizevici. It reached the area of fighting at about 3 a.m. on Sunday, July 16, just as the forward groups managed to breach the line of the Zvornik Brigade's 4th Infantry Battalion. Unable to move several captured heavy arms including two Praga self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, they used them to fire into the Serb front line. Thus the column finally succeeded in breaking through to Bosnian government controlled territory and linked up with BiH units which had assaulted the 4th Battalion's front in order to meet the column at between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. on July 16.
Arrival at Tuzla and closure of the corridor
Only a few journalists were present to witness the arrival of the column in Bosnian-held territory after its eventful march across country, as most attention was being devoted to the reception of the women and children at the airbase in Tuzla. The few items that appeared in the press and on television described the arrival of 'an army of ghosts': men clad in rags, totally exhausted and emaciated by hunger. Some had no more than underwear, some were walking on bleeding feet wrapped in rags or plastic, and some were being carried on makeshift stretchers. There were men walking hand in hand with children. Many were still visibly frightened. Some were delirious and hallucinating as a result of the immense stress and privations they had endured. One soldier began to fire on his own unit as they arrived in Baljkovica; he had to be killed to prevent further bloodshed. The medical station set up by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Međeđa handed out large quantities of tranquillizers. As one survivor said, anyone who had not been on the march could not possibly begin to imagine what it had been like.
The men who had managed to reach safety spoke of little else besides the atrocities they had seen, the fighting they had endured and the fact that many of their comrades had been killed. The survivors felt a certain bitterness towards the UN because it had not been able to protect the "Safe Area." That bitterness and resentment was also directed towards the 2nd Corps of the ABiH. The column's arrival on Bosnian soil was marked by a number of incidents. In one, a member of the 28th Division opened fire at his own Corps Commander, Sead Delić. A Military Police bodyguard was killed, while another returned fire and killed the sniper. The tensions were so great following the crossing of the line of engagement that staff officers of 2nd Corps removed their insignia so that they could not be recognized as staff officers at all. According to the Deputy Corps Commander, the division had turned against the 2nd Corps; in fact, the lack of confidence in the 2nd Corps was nothing new, as the 28th Division had felt abandoned already in Srebrenica. On 4 August 1995, a parade was held in Banovica, involving the 3,651 remaining soldiers of the 28th Division (of the original 6,500). The division was then disbanded. [citation needed]
Only some 3,000 to 4,000 of the marchers who had left Srebrenica four days earlier arrived safely in Tuzla on July 16. Approximately one-third of the column, mostly composed of military personnel, crossed the Bratunac-Milići road near Nova Kasaba and reached safety in Tuzla. The remaining Bosniaks were trapped behind the Serb lines.
As the march progressed, many people fell behind, lost the way or decided to turn back into more familiar territory in the Srebrenica region and to attempt to reach Žepa from there. Others tried to push onwards in the wake of the vanguard of the column, following the signs that people had passed here, which included corpses -- as the fighting between the VRS and ABiH, ambushes, fighting among factions within the column, suicide, exhaustion and the rigours of the journey would have claimed an unknown number of lives and the bodies of these people remained unburied in the woods. The groups who managed to complete the journey to Tuzla took widely varying times to do so; in a few extreme cases, people reached Bosnian territory only after several months.
Once the armed portion of the column had passed through, the Serbs closed the corridor and recommenced hunting down parts of the column which were still in areas under their control. On 16 July 1995, there were around 2,000 refugees hiding in the woods in the area of Pobudje, with many more scattered elsewhere.
A plan to execute the Bosniaks of Srebrenica
Although Serbs have long been blamed for the massacre, it was not until June 2004 — following the Srebrenica commission's preliminary report — that Serb officials acknowledged that their security forces planned and carried out the slaughter. A Serb commission's final report on the 1995 Srebrenica massacre acknowledged that the mass murder of more than 7,800 Bosniak men and boys was planned. The commission found that more than 7,800 were killed after it compiled thirty-four lists of victims. \
The question of why the executions took place at all is not easy to answer. During the Radislav Krstić's trial before the ICTY, the prosecution's military advisor, Richard Butler, pointed out in taking this course of action, the Serbs deprived themselves of an extremely valuable bargaining counter. Butler suggested that the Serbs would have had far more to gain had they taken the men in Potocari as prisoners of war, under the supervision of the International Red Cross (IRC) and the UN troops still in the area. It might then have been possible to enter into some sort of exchange deal or they might have been able to force political concessions. Based on this reasoning, the ensuing mass murder defied rational explanation.
The ICTY was of the opinion that the Serbs eventually intended to kill as many men of combatant age as possible. Although a number of women and children were murdered, together with a relatively large number of older men, the main focus of the VRS was on able-bodied men between the ages of 16 and 60. The buses which transported the women and children were systematically searched for men. Some, although very few, exceptions were made; they included the casualties in Bratunac hospital who had previously been treated in the Dutchbat compound at Potočari. Thus, a concerted effort was made to capture all Bosniak men of military age. In fact, those captured included many boys well below military age and elderly men several years above that age that remained in the enclave following the take-over of Srebrenica. These men and boys were targeted regardless of whether they chose to flee to Potočari or to join the Bosniak column.
The mass executions
The vast amount of planning and high-level coordination that had to be invested in killing thousands of men in a few days is apparent from even the briefest description of the scale and the methodical nature in which the executions were carried out.
The VRS took the largest number of prisoners on 13 July, along the Bratunac-Konjevic Polje road. It remains impossible to cite a precise figure, but witness statements describe the assembly points such as the field at Sandici, the agricultural warehouses in Kravica, the school in Konjevic Polje, the football field in Nova Kasaba, the village of Lolici and the village school of Luke. Several thousands of people were herded together in the field near Sandici and on the Nova Kasaba football pitch, where they were searched and put into smaller groups. In a video tape made by journalist Zoran Petrovic, a VRS soldier states that at least 3,000 to 4,000 men had given themselves up on the road. By the late afternoon of 13 July, the total had risen to some 6,000, according to the intercepted radio communication; the following day, Major Franken of Dutchbat was given the same figure by Colonel Radislav Jankovic of the VRS. Many of the prisoners had been seen in the locations described by passing convoys taking the women and children to Kladanj by bus, while various aerial photographs have since provided evidence to confirm this version of events.
One hour after the evacuation of the women from Potocari was completed, the Drina Corps staff diverted the buses to the areas in which the men were being held. Colonel Krsmanovic, who on 12 July had arranged the buses for the evacuation, ordered the 700 men in Sandici to be collected, and the soldiers guarding them made them throw their possessions on a large heap and hand over anything of value. During the afternoon, the group in Sandici was visited by Mladic who told them that they would come to no harm, that they would be treated as prisoners of war, that they would be exchanged for other prisoners and that their families had been escorted to Tuzla in safety. Some of these men were placed on the transport to Bratunac and other locations, while some were marched on foot to the warehouses in Kravica. The men gathered on the football ground at Nova Kasaba were forced to hand over their personal belongings. They too received a personal visit from Mladic during the afternoon of 13 July; on this occasion, he announced that the Bosnian authorities in Tuzla did not want the men and that they were therefore to be taken to other locations. The men in Nova Kasaba were loaded onto buses and trucks and were taken to Bratunac or the other locations.
The Bosniak men who had been separated from the women, children and elderly in Potočari numbering approximately 1,000, were transported to Bratunac and subsequently joined by Bosniak men captured from the column. Almost to a man, the thousands of Bosniak prisoners captured, following the take-over of Srebrenica, were executed. Some were killed individually or in small groups by the soldiers who captured them and some were killed in the places where they were temporarily detained. Most, however, were slaughtered in carefully orchestrated mass executions, commencing on 13 July 1995, in the region just north of Srebrenica.
The mass executions followed a well-established pattern. The men were first taken to empty schools or warehouses. After being detained there for some hours, they were loaded onto buses or trucks and taken to another site for execution. Usually, the execution fields were in isolated locations. The prisoners were unarmed and, in many cases, steps had been taken to minimize resistance, such as blindfolding them, binding their wrists behind their backs with ligatures or removing their shoes. Once at the killing fields, the men were taken off the trucks in small groups, lined up and shot. Those who survived the initial round of gunfire were individually shot with an extra round, though sometimes only after they had been left to suffer for a time.
The progress of finding victim bodies in the Srebrenica region, often in mass graves, exhuming them and finally identifying them was relatively slow. By 2002, 5,000 bodies were exhumed but only 200 were identified. However, since then the exhumed body count has risen to 6,000 and the identification has been completed for over 2,000, as of 2005.
The morning of 13 July 1995: Jadar River executions
A small-scale execution took place prior to midday at the Jadar River on 13 July 1995. Seventeen men were transported by bus a short distance to a spot on the banks of the Jadar River. The men were then lined up and shot. One man, after being hit in the hip by a bullet, jumped into the river and managed to escape.
The afternoon of 13 July 1995: Cerska Valley executions
The first large-scale mass executions began on the afternoon of 13 July 1995 in the valley of the River Cerska, to the west of Konjevic Polje. One witness, hidden among trees, saw two or three trucks, followed by an armoured vehicle and an earthmoving machine proceeding towards Cerska. After that, he heard gunshots for half an hour and then saw the armoured vehicle going in the opposite direction, but not the earthmoving machine. Other witnesses report seeing a pool of blood alongside the road to Cerska that day. Muhamed Durakovic, a UN translator, probably passed this execution site later that day. He reports seeing bodies tossed into a ditch alongside the road, with some men still alive.
Aerial photos and excavations later confirmed the presence of a mass grave near this location. Ammunition cartridges found at the scene reveal that the victims were lined up on one side of the road, whereupon their executioners opened fire from the other. The bodies - 150 in number - were covered with earth where they lay. It could later be established that they had been killed by rifle fire. All were males, between the ages of 14 and 50. All but three of the 150 were wearing civilian clothes. Many had their hands tied behind their backs. Nine could later be identified and were indeed on the list of missing persons from Srebrenica.
The late afternoon of 13 July: executions in the warehouse at Kravica
Later that same afternoon, 13 July 1995, executions were also conducted in the largest of four warehouses (farm sheds) owned by the Agricultural Cooperative in Kravica. Between 1,000 and 1,500 men had been captured in fields near Sandici and detained in Sandici Meadow. They were brought to Kravica, either by bus or on foot, the distance being approximately one kilometre. A witness recalls seeing around 200 men, stripped to the waist and with their hands in the air, being forced to run in the direction of Kravica. An aerial photograph taken at 14.00 hours that afternoon shows two buses standing in front of the sheds.
At around 18.00 hours, when the men were all being held in the warehouse, VRS soldiers threw in hand grenades and opened fire with various weapons, including an anti-tank gun. In the local area it is said that the mass murder in Kravica was unplanned and started quite spontaneously when one of the warehouse doors suddenly swung open.
Supposedly, there was more killing in and around Kravica and Sandici. Even before the murders in the warehouse, some 200 or 300 men were formed up in ranks near Sandici and then mown down with machine guns. At Kravica, it seems that the local population had a hand in the killings. Some victims were mutilated and killed with knives. The bodies were taken to Bratunac or simply dumped in the river that runs alongside the road. One witness states that this all took place on the 14 July. There were three survivors of the slaughter in the farm sheds at Kravica.
Armed guards shot at the men who tried to climb out the windows to escape the massacre. When the shooting stopped, the shed was full of bodies. Another survivor, who was only slightly wounded, reports:
I was not even able to touch the floor, the concrete floor of the building (…) After the shooting, I felt a strange kind of heat, warmth, which was actually coming from the blood that covered the concrete floor, and I was stepping on the dead people who were lying around. But there were even people who were still alive, who were only wounded, and as soon as I would step on one, I would hear him cry, moan, because I was trying to move as fast as I could. I could tell that people had been completely disembodied, and I could feel bones of the people that had been hit by those bursts of gunfire or shells, I could feel their ribs crushing. And then I would get up again and continue.[16]
When this witness climbed out of a window, he was seen by a guard who shot at him. He then pretended to be dead and managed to escape the following morning. The other witness quoted above spent the night under a heap of bodies. The next morning, he watched as the soldiers examined the corpses for signs of life. The few survivors were forced to sing Serbian songs, and were then shot. Once the final victim had been killed, an excavator was driven in to shunt the bodies out of the shed. The asphalt outside was then hosed down with water. In September 1996, it was still possible to find hair, blood, human tissue and traces of explosives on the walls to be used in evidence. Some remnants of bones were discovered near one of the outer walls.
Analyses of hair, blood and explosives residue collected at the Kravica Warehouse provide strong evidence of the killings. Experts determined the presence of bullet strikes, explosives residue, bullets and shell cases, as well as human blood, bones and tissue adhering to the walls and floors of the building. Forensic evidence presented by the ICTY Prosecutor [verb missing - "established"?] a link between the executions in Kravica and the 'primary' mass grave known as Glogova 2, in which the remains of 139 people were found. No blindfolds or restraints were found. In the 'secondary' grave known as Zeleni Jadar 5 there were 145 bodies, a number of which were charred. Pieces of brick and window frame which were found in the Glogova 1 grave that was opened later also established a link with Kravica. Here the remains of 191 victims were found.
13–14 July 1995: Tišca
As the buses crowded with Bosniak women, children and elderly made their way from Potočari to Kladanj, they were stopped at Tišca, searched, and the Bosniak men and boys found on board were removed from the bus. The evidence reveals a well-organised operation in Tišca.
From the checkpoint, an officer directed the soldier escorting the witness towards a nearby school where many other prisoners were being held. At the school, a soldier on a field telephone appeared to be transmitting and receiving orders. Sometime around midnight, the witness was loaded onto a truck with 22 other men with their hands
- ^ Federal Commission for Missing Persons; "Preliminary List of Missing and Killed in Srebrenica"; 2005 [1]
- ^ Tribunal Update #444, "Stanisic and Simatovic Pleas". Institute for War and Peace Reporting. 17 March 2006. [2]
- ^ ICTY Trial Chamber Judgement "Prosecutor vs Krstic", Findings of Fact, paragraphs 18 and 26 [3]
- ^ ICTY, Prosecutor vs Krstic, Trial Chamber Judgement, Case No. IT-98-33-T, paras 43–46. [4]
- ^ Federal Commission for Missing Persons; "Preliminary List of Missing and Killed in Srebrenica"; 2005 [5]
- ^ Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Tribunal Update: Briefly Noted (TU No 398, 18-Mar-05) [6]
- ^ ICTY; "Prosecutor vs. Krstic: Appeals chamber judgement"; United Nations [7]
- ^ ICTY, Prosecutor vs. Krstic, Trial Chamber Judgement, para. 12
- ^ Bratunac Municipality Officials, "Truth about Bratunac (Istina o Bratuncu)". 1995 [8]
- ^ NIOD Report, Part IV, Chapter 1, Section 3.
- ^ a b c ICTY. "Prosecutor vs Naser Oric, Judgement". United Nations. 30 June 2006. pg. 43-51[9]
- ^ ICTY, Prosecutor vs. Radislav Krstic Judgement; United Nations; para. #13 [10]
- ^ ICTY, Prosecutor vs. Krstic; Trial Chamber Judgement; United Nations; para. 13–17.
- ^ Security Council. "Resolution 819". United Nations. 16 April 1993. para. #1 [11]
- ^ U.N. Report, The Fall of Srebrenica - Role of Bosniak Forces on the Ground. [12]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l ICTY. "Prosecutor vs Krstic, First Judgement". United Nations. 2 August 2001. [13] Cite error: The named reference "ICTY3" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Secretary General. "The Fall of Srebrenica". United Nations. 15 November 1999. [14]
- ^ ICTY. "Prosecutor vs Krstic, Appeals Chamber Judgement". United Nations. 19 April 2004. [15]
- ^ Daruvalla, Abi. (21 April 2002). "Anatomy of a Massacre". TIME Magazine.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|accessmonthday=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ ICTY, Prosecutor vs. Krstic Judgement, Parts I and II [16]
- ^ a b c d CNN, Srebrenica: A Triumph of Evil, May 3, 2006 [17].
- ^ Del Ponte, Carla. "“Statement: Srebrenica Massacre Orchestrators Must Be Caught”. ICTY Prosecutor's Chamber. 7 June 2006 ". [18]
- ^ a b Rohde,David; "Account of Women Taken", Columbia University; October 2 1995 [19]
- ^ a b Institute for War and Peace Reporting; "Prosecuting Rape Cases; [20]
- ^ Controversial Srebrenica Report Back on Table by Institute for War and Peace Reporting and Thoughts on NIOD Report