A Voice For the Voiceless

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The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

The Massacre

The United Nations created a total of six “safe areas” in 1993, including Srebrenica. The intention was to stabilize the map of Bosnia, pursuant to a negotiated peace that would determine the layout of post-war Bosnia. But in agreeing to protect the Srebrenica enclave, the United Nations established a fatal contradiction that would doom the “safe areas.”

The UN mandate in Bosnia required its troops to act with neutrality. In reality, the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was protecting aid deliveries, not local residents. Its freedom of movement was at the mercy of the stronger belligerent, and in eastern Bosnia this meant the Serb forces. As a result, the Dutch battalion’s ability to protect, or at least feed, the inhabitants of Srebrenica depended on the cooperation of the Serbs. This cooperation was generally bought with bribes, usually consisting of aid intended for the enclave. Whenever it suited the strategic needs of the Serb forces, the cooperation disappeared.


Killing Fields: On July 11 1995, Muslims poured down this road from Srebrenica to Potocari, to seek refuge at the base of the Dutch battalion, based at the battery factory on the right.

There was no significant change in the front lines during the two years after the establishment of the Srebrenica enclave. A 1994 Serb offensive against Gorazde, another “safe area” to the south of Srebrenica, took some territory but failed to conquer the city. With the end of a winter cease-fire in early 1995, the Serb forces hoped to change the balance of forces in eastern Bosnia once and for all, and to bring an end to the war. Muslim-controlled Srebrenica was in their way, and they resolved to take it over.

Early in 1995 General Ratko Mladic’s forces began encroaching upon the boundaries of the Srebrenica enclave. They continued attacks with the pretext of retaliation for Oric’s ongoing raids. In the coming months Mladic halted aid convoys into Srebrenica, including food and fuel supplies for the Dutch troops.

This caused relations to worsen between the Dutch and the Muslims they were supposed to be protecting. Local Muslim officials wanted a guarantee that the United Nations would defend Srebrenica if it were attacked, and the Dutch wanted Muslim forces to cease their provocative raids on Serb positions and outlying Serb villages.

Early in the spring, army commanders in Sarajevo ordered most of the top commanders in Srebrenica, including Naser Oric, to leave the enclave for “consultations and training.” Oric was never to return, and this was fatal to the morale and cohesion of the troops defending Srebrenica.

In late May events took place in other parts of Bosnia that affected the destiny of Srebrenica. The Serb forces tightened the siege on Sarajevo, violating an agreement from the previous year. In response, NATO bombed several ammunition dumps, and the Serbs retaliated by bombing all six “safe areas.” They bombed the center of Tuzla one evening, causing the deaths of 71 victims -- the largest single bombing casualty in the war. The Serbs then took over 300 UN personnel hostage. This brought the UN military operations to a complete halt.

This Serb pressure created tension between the UN's military and civilian leaders. Most, including General Bernard Janvier, commander of UN troops in the former Yugoslavia, opposed retaliation. Janvier, in fact, had advocated withdrawal from the enclaves as militarily untenable positions. On the other hand, General Rupert Smith, commander of UNPROFOR in Bosnia, opposed negotiations with the Serb hostage-takers, feeling that they would not have the nerve to carry through their threats of execution. He favored applying force to resolve the situation.

UN special envoy Yasushi Akashi took Janvier’s side and declared that air strikes should be used only in extreme cases of self-defense. The UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali also demanded -- and received -- a personal veto on NATO air attacks. NATO's response was thus constrained by a “double key,” whereby its actions had to be approved by UNPROFOR.

Photo credit: Newsworld 

Serb tanks attack Srebrenica during the final stages of the siege.

Janvier and Akashi were counting on the effectiveness of negotiations, hoping to calm the crisis and hold out until a political settlement could be negotiated. But as events proved, Serb forces were determined to achieve control of a territory free of enclaves at all costs. After talks between Janvier and Mladic in mid-June, the Serbs freed the hostages. It was clear to them and to NATO that the United Nations was not going to sanction the use of air strikes. Following these developments, NATO reduced its jet patrols over Bosnia, thus creating the need for a longer advance-notice in the event of air strikes.

General Mladic’s final offensive on Srebrenica began in early July 1995 with a troop build-up around the enclave and the heaviest bombing in two years. By July 7 the Serbs were disarming Dutch observation posts and forcing them to withdraw, giving them the choice of going into Srebrenica, or leaving the area altogether via nearby Serb-controlled Bratunac. The Serbs then took around 30 Dutch soldiers from one outpost and held them hostage.

In spite of these developments, the local Dutch officers and high UNPROFOR commanders alike interpreted the Serb offensive as a partial one, not life-threatening to the entire population of Srebrenica. They set up a new defense line closer to Srebrenica and gave the Serbs a vague warning of retaliation. On July 10, Mladic’s forces attacked the new line of defense and the local Dutch commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ton Karremans, requested air strikes. These were blocked by Janvier, who deemed them unnecessary. In fact, NATO airplanes circled the area for several hours as a warning, but then left without attacking.

Photo credit: Newsworld 

The butcher: Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic arrives in Srebrenica prior to the massacres.

The next morning, the local Dutch commanders promised the people of Srebrenica that NATO airplanes would finally strike at the oncoming Serbs. Karremans sent multiple requests for air attacks; one of his requests was turned down for being filed on the wrong form. Janvier did not send out an attack order to NATO all morning, and General Mladic’s final assault began. With the entrance of Serb forces at the south end of Srebrenica, tens of thousands of Muslims fled north to the industrial suburb of Potocari, the location of the UN headquarters. There, they expected to be protected by the UNPROFOR troops.

In Potocari, thousands of refugees who had fled Srebrenica entered the UN base. When approximately 5,000 had entered, the Dutch declared the base full and halted entrance of the rest of the refugees. Around 20,000 more people gathered outside the base, sitting down in street and nearby fields. Soon Serb soldiers commanded by Ratko Mladic arrived, already having taken over Srebrenica. General Mladic made a show of handing out chocolate bars to the children in front of a Serb television camera. 

Photo credit: Newsworld 


Muslim men being separated by their Serb captors at the UN base.

The next day Serb soldiers began the evacuation of Potocari. The Dutch forces did not intervene. In some cases they even helped the Serbs load people onto the buses in an orderly way. They made the decision to protect a small number of Muslim UN employees. Translator Hasan Nuhanovic tried to save his family. His father Ibro had been a member of the UN team negotiating with the Serbs. The Dutch were willing to take care of the two men but refused to guarantee the safety of Hasan Nuhanovic’s mother or younger brother.

The Serb soldiers separated out the women, children, and men above military age and put them on buses to be driven to the edge of Muslim-controlled territory. They explained to the Dutch that the military-age men were to be interrogated and, once it was determined that they had not “participated in war crimes,” they would be released. But the refugees knew better than to believe this.

Nuhanovic said, “All who were in Potocari then, the Dutch and us, knew that whoever set foot outside the UN compound was dead. We made a plan, my father, Mandzic [another member of the negotiating team] and I, although I was only an interpreter. Our conditions were that there would be no evacuations until the world media were informed of the current situation in Potocari, until a military negotiating team and journalists arrived, and people would be moved to safety in the presence of UNPROFOR soldiers...I looked through the gate, and there were already 15-20 military vehicles ready, and women and children were getting on board. There were no men. The deportation had begun.” (“Ljiljan,” July 17, 2000)

During the evacuation, Serbs were taking away men and shooting them in the woods near the UN base. Refugees were crazed with fear; they knew what could happen to them. Several people found ways to commit suicide. The rest of the military-age men, over the next couple of days, were taken away to be killed.

Hundreds of Serbs were involved in the final “cleansing” of Srebrenica. Many of these men were from neighboring towns between Visegrad and Zvornik, but others were from deep within Serbia. They trucked and bused thousands of men to a half-dozen locations -- fields and warehouses as far away as Zvornik and beyond, where they shot them over the next few days. The massacres were systematic and planned so as to make identification of the bodies impossible. The victims’ shoes and other identifying items were removed, and in many cases their hands were bound behind their backs with wire before execution. Bus drivers were forced to participate in the shooting so as to have a reason not to implicate the other culprits.

Mevludin Oric and Hurem Suljic survived the massacre by being buried under corpses. Mevludin Oric said whenever anyone showed signs of life, he was killed. At one point, he heard an old man plead: “Please don’t do this to us, children. We haven’t done anything to you.” He, too, was killed.

Photo credit: BBC
Doomed: Captured Muslim men await their fate.

Hurem Suljic said a backhoe was digging a hole about 30 feet away. At one point, he said, Mladic appeared about 15 yards away. “He took a look and left quickly. Group by group, trucks brought prisoners, who were gunned down in turn. When it became too dark to see, the soldiers used the headlights of two backhoes,” Suljic said. (Associated Press, October 4, 1995)

As thousands of Srebrenicans fled to Potocari, another column of people was heading for the woods. Between 10,000 and 15,000 military-age men, fearful of being killed by Mladic’s soldiers, headed westward on foot through the forests, in an attempt to break through to Muslim-held territory 40 miles away.

Mehrudin Mesanovic, a Srebrenica survivor, described the moment when he left for the woods. “Everything happened extremely quickly. While the Serbs penetrated towards Srebrenica, it was decided that women and children should go toward Potocari, while the men started over the mountains towards Tuzla. The men formed ranks in Buljun and the brigade started towards Tuzla, platoon by platoon.”

Photo credit: Newsworld 

Reliving the Anguish: A survivor of the massacre tells his story on television.

The thousands of men were trying to make their way through the woods to safety in Muslim-controlled territory. The best-armed, the wounded, and the most influential Srebrenicans were at the front of the column. Those at the rear were in the greatest danger, as Serb forces would have the most time to pick them off. What these fleeing men lived through had to be one of the most hellish experiences of the war. In the coming days ambushes took hundreds of lives. Some were killed by mines. Serbs called into the woods for the Muslims to surrender, and those who did were killed -- some immediately, and others were taken off to collection centers where they were subsequently massacred.

At times Serbs would show up in the column pretending to be Muslim guides and would lead the refugees into a trap. Some of these Serb soldiers were wearing stolen UN uniforms. Suspicion and paranoia grew, and some Muslims killed each other out of fear. Some lost their reason. There are reports of people hallucinating due to nerve gas used by the Serb forces. In the end, the armed people at the front of the column, with assistance from Muslim forces coming from Tuzla, briefly opened a gap in the Serb line, and survivors of the column were able to break through. Fewer than half of the original column made it.

Several thousand people were thus killed while trying to escape. The number of missing Srebrenicans reported by the Red Cross is approximately 7,500. The total number of those killed in the escaping column and at the killing fields is probably higher, as whole families and villages were left with no one to report their disappearance.

Photo credit: AP

Forensics expert examines the remains of one of the victims in the forest between Srebrenica and Tuzla.

In November 1999, the United Nations released a 155-page report on the fall of Srebrenica. In announcing this report, Secretary-General Kofi Annan accepted some criticism of the United Nations for the atrocities. He cited “errors of judgment,” principally the use of a peacekeeping force where there was no peace to keep. He further noted, “There was neither the will to use decisive air power against Serb attacks on the safe areas, nor the means on the ground to repulse them.” Annan’s comments focused on the UN’s lack of preparedness for the situation in which they found themselves, but it did not assess the conscious decisions leading to the abandonment of the enclave to the Serbs.