Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Despite their hardships during the siege, many Sarajevans consider themselves fortu-
nate not to have met the same fate as many of the Bosniaks living in eastern Bosnia
during the war. These areas, bordering Serbia proper and intertwined with Serb-dom-
inatedpartsofBosnia,wereaggressivelytargetedbytheviciousmilitaryandparamil-
itary forces of Bosnian Serb President Radoran Karadži
ć
. While many towns along
the Fo
č
a River Valley were brutally besieged and overrun, the most notorious site of
ethnic cleansing was in the town of Srebrenica.
Before the war, Srebrenica (SREB-reh-neet-seh, meaning “silver mine”) was a
mining center and spa town of about 36,000 people, which sat near the geographical
center of Yugoslavia. While three-quarters of the population was Bosniak, it also had
a large Serb community. There was nothing unique about Srebrenica that made it
prime to become the poster child for ethnic cleansing—it simply got in the way of
Karadži
ć
's battle plans.
In1993,asreportssurfacedofKaradži
ć
'sforcesusingethniccleansinginmultiple
Bosniak villages in eastern Bosnia, the United Nations designated “safe areas” where
civilian refugees could take shelter. Srebrenica was the first one. The UN dispatched
a “protection force” (UNPROFOR) to these areas. But those UNPROFOR
troops—including400DutchsoldierssenttowatchoverSrebrenica—soonfearedfor
their own lives as much as for those they were intended to guard. The UN demanded
thattheirtroopsremaincompletely“neutral,”evenwhendirectlyattacked—dooming
them to an ultimately pointless mission.
Conditions in the “safe areas” swiftly deteriorated, and by 1995, Srebrenica had
become a highly vulnerable refugee-crammed island in a tight bottleneck valley, en-
tirely surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces. In July, the noose began to close around
Srebrenica, as General Ratko Mladi
ć
invaded. In the afternoon of July 11, 1995,
Mladi
ć
marched triumphantly through the town, claiming Srebrenica for the Serb
people. Most of the estimated 50,000 to 60,000 people living in the town fled.
Approximately 25,000 refugees—mostly women, children, ill or injured people,
andtheelderly—showedupindesperationattheUNpeacekeepingbaseatthenearby
village of Poto
č
ari. The terrified Dutch troops there, unable to provide for either the
safety or the basic nutritional needs of so many, took in only about 5,000 of the
refugees (predominantly mothers with babies) and turned the rest away—leaving the
rest to fend for themselves.
Both at Poto
č
ari and in Srebrenica, Bosnian Serb forces culled out any men
between the ages of 12 and 77. In that moment, families were ripped apart forever, as
husbands,fathers,andsonsweretakenawaytobesummarilyexecuted.Manysurviv-
