About every ten miles on the one-land winding road to Srebrenica there is a town with nothing more than a market and a few cafes. People walk along the road carrying groceries, children play, and farmers tend their fields. In this banality of everyday life is an unsettling realization that life went on where so many lives ended. 

From the beginning of the conflict the Bosnian Serb military prioritized controlling eastern Bosnia, including the area around Srebrenica, which is only a few kilometers from the border with Serbia. The Bosnian Serb military swiftly secured control over most of the areas in eastern Bosnia except in three towns, one of which was Srebrenica. [1]

One of the most striking feelings provoked when visiting Srebrenica is how something so horrific happened in a fight for land that looks so unremarkable. The Bosnian Serb army and politicians, however, believed a Serbian Srebrenica cleansed of the Muslim population was essential to creating an undivided Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb entity within Bosnia. [2] 

A few miles from Srebrenica, you will reach a town called Bratunac, where the Bosnian Serb army stayed before moving up the valley to Srebrenica. The R454 highway comes to a crossroads in the center of Bratunac. Across the main street on the left side is an abandoned two-story building attached to a slightly u-shaped passageway behind a grassy area. In the 1990s, this pale pink building was the site of the once flamingo-colored Fontana Hotel, where Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić met with UN peacekeepers in the second week of July 1995. Mladić assured the UN that the Muslim population was not the target of the Bosnian Serb military operations while demanding to know if the Muslims wished to “stay or vanish.”   

Take a right at the crossroads to continue to the next town, Potočari. Potočari foreshadows the end before you reach the beginning. On the right side of the road, over seven thousand Islamic tombstones paint the hillside white marking the graves of the victims of Srebrenica. 

On April 16, 1993, the UN Security Council designated Srebrenica as the first “safe area” in Bosnia that was placed under increased presence of the UN Protection Force. [3] In its resolution, the Security Council stated it was “aware that a tragic humanitarian emergency has already developed in Srebrenica and its surrounding areas as a direct consequence of the brutal actions of Bosnian Serb paramilitary units, forcing the large-scale displacement of civilians . . .” [4] The UN Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia approximately six weeks later. 

Directly across the road from the entrance to the Potočari memorial cemetery is a fenced-in field with warehouses that served as the UN compound. A dirt path leads to the main warehouse that displays a photo gallery. Visitors can walk around in the emptiness of this warehouse where thousands of civilians sought safety in July 1995. A short walk up the road was the main entrance to the compound marked by a cement block preserved in plexiglass that reads “Dutch Bat,” for the battalion of Dutch United Nations peacekeepers assigned to the enclave who used this compound as their headquarters. 

About five more minutes from Potočari, you will find Srebrenica, isolated at the end of the road and surrounded by steep hillsides. When coupled with military force, it is easy to understand how this solitude turned into confinement that cut Srebrenica off from the rest of the world for over three years. 

The pre-war population of Srebrenica was around 4,000. After the conflict began, about 20,000-25,000 Bosnian Muslims from surrounding areas, who were forced out of their homes by the Bosnian Serb army, sought refuge in Srebrenica. This population increase incapacitated every resource and living space in the town, especially when the Bosnian Serb army blocked humanitarian aid from entering. The Bosnian Serb army knew that eliminating Bosnian Muslims in the Srebrenica enclave would be the final move to cleanse the region of Bosnian Muslims. [5] 

By early 1995, roughly two years after the humanitarian crisis in Srebrenica began, the war began winding down. Bosnian Serbs were losing territory around Bosnia and Croatia, and negotiations to end the conflict were beginning. The leaders of Republika Srpska were determined to hold on to as much territory as possible in any peace deal, particularly the easternmost territory. 

The Crime of Crimes

On March 8, 1995, feeling urgency to secure the enclave for the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadžić, president of the Republika Srpska, issued Directive Number 7 which ordered the army, to “create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica.” [6] General Ratko Mladić, head of the army of Republika Srpska, signed this order and translated it into military tactics that his units carried out in the beginning of July 1995. 

On July 6, 1995, the Bosnian Serb army began attacking the valley and moving towards Srebrenica. Until now, Dutch Bat stood between the Bosnian Serb army and Srebrenica. NATO  targeted Bosnian Serb tanks with airstrikes as they moved up the valley. In response, the Bosnian Serb army fired on the UN compound and civilians. NATO airstrikes never resumed, and the Bosnian Serb army moved passed the UN compound without resistance.

On July 11, 1995, Srebrenica fell to the Bosnian Serbs. General Mladić proudly surveyed the town, shook hands with his soldiers, and declared victory as if his team had just won a sporting match. He stated to a television reporter, “the time has come to take revenge on the Turks in this region.” 

There is a scene in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon in which a man on the Croatian coast shouts at a waiter that his soup is cold. The author surmises, “he was not shouting at the soup. He was shouting at the Turks, at the Venetians, at the Austrians . . . and at the Serbs (if he was a Croat) or at the Croats (if he was a Serb).” [7] This complex history led Mladić, unjustifiably and nonsensically, to yell at the Turks whose Ottoman Empire left Bosnia over 110 years before his army cleansed the Muslims from Srebrenica to return the town to the Serbs. 

The 25,000 – 30,000 civilians who were forced out of their homes had nowhere to go except down the valley to Potočari where they tried to take refuge in the UN compound. Dutch Bat permitted only a few thousand to enter. 

With no other option but certain death, about 12,000 civilians, mostly men, tried to escape the enclave through the only possible route: over the hills. On the night of July 11, they formed a column and aimed for Bosnian-held territory 63 miles away in Tuzla. About half or less of the men actually made it to Tuzla. Others perished along the way or were shot by Serb gunfire and shelling directed on the column. [8] 

From July 12-14, Bosnian Muslim women, children, and elderly, were bused out of the valley into territory controlled by the Bosnian Federation’s army. Men aged 12 to over 60, who were unlucky enough to be allowed into the UN compound, learned it was no refuge at all. The Bosnian Serb army transported them to execution sites where approximately 8,000 were murdered in five days from July 12-17, 1995. [9] 

One of the execution sites was the farm sheds in the town of Kravica, about 15 minutes before reaching Bratunac. As you leave Kravica heading west on highway R454, just off the road on the left, there are large sheds where about 1,000 men were corralled and shot with machine guns and grenades. The sheds have returned to their original purpose of storing equipment. Another execution site is a few more miles down the road at the school in Konjevic Polje, at junction where R454 meets M19. Others were taken to nearby farms and other warehouses. 

The Cover Up

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was established over two years before the massacre in Srebrenica. On July 24, 1995, less than two weeks after the murders ended, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted Ratko Mladić, general of the Bosnian Serb army, for crimes including genocide in Srebrenica. After learning of the indictment, the Bosnian Serb army attempted to hide the evidence. 

Initially, victims’ bodies were buried primarily in five mass grave sites. [10] The Bosnian Serb army then used dump trucks and bulldozers to move bodies from the five main graves into around 30 other graves. The heavy machinery broke up decomposing bodies in the process which caused bones of individuals to scatter into multiple graves. This made identifying victims one of the most difficult forensic puzzles in history. 

Identifying Victims

The International Commission on Missing Persons was established in 1996 with a mandate to account for approximately 40,000 missing persons from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, over 8,000 of whom were from Srebrenica. 

As of mid-2001, only 151 people who were missing from Srebrenica had been identified. [11] To improve the accuracy and efficiency of the identification process, the International Commission on Missing Persons established a DNA tracking system that matched DNA from families of victims to the DNA extracted from human remains found in the mass graves.

Identifying victims was still a long and labor-intensive process, but the accuracy was instrumental in gathering evidence for use at criminal trials and creating a historical record of what happened. As of 2019, the remains of about 7,000 people who were killed in July 1995 in Srebrenica have been identified and about 1,000 remain missing. [12]

Every year on July 11, victims who were identified in the previous year are buried at the memorial in Potočari. Even as of 2019, victims continued to be identified, returned to their families, and laid to rest. 

Justice

Sixteen years passed before Ratko Mladić was finally arrested. Another six more years passed before his trial concluded and the court issued its verdict. 

Genocide requires proof of the specific intent “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethic, racial or religious group.” [13] The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia found that the executions of the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica constituted genocide and that Mladić, among numerous other crimes, was guilty of committing genocide. [14] The massacre at Srebrenica was the only crime in Bosnia and Croatia found to meet the legal elements of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. 

Twenty individuals were tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for crimes in Srebrenica and fifteen were convicted. Over thirty-five individuals have been convicted for crimes related to Srebrenica at the local war crimes court in Bosnia. 

Travel Tips

• Srebrenica Memorial. The memorial is open from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. It is located directly off the main road running through Potočari. The UN compound is accessible directly across the street from the cemetery. No tickets are required for entrance and you may walk around freely. 

• If you stay in Sarajevo before visiting Srebrenica, visit the museum and photography exhibit called 11/07/95. The museum provides a comprehensive timeline in an interactive exhibit of the events that led to the fall of Srebrenica and genocide. Visiting this museum in advance will make your time in Srebrenica and Potočari more meaningful.