Key points
- Srebrenica genocide is one of Europe’s worst atrocities since World War II
- About 1,000 victims are still reported missing
- UN had declared the ill-fated town a “protected zone”
- Many of the remains were shredded by heavy machinery to cover up the crime: Experts
- Officially, Sejdalija Alic and Hasib Omerovic have finally been found and will be buried on Friday next
ŽIVINICE, Bosnia and Herzegovina: Officially, Sejdalija Alic and Hasib Omerovic have finally been found and will be buried on Friday next to thousands of other victims killed exactly 30 years ago in the Srebrenica genocide.
But their loved ones will lay in the ground only a bone or two, hoping it will be enough to bring peace to both the dead and the living.
The two men were among the more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys killed by Bosnian Serb forces after they captured the town on July 11, 1995, in one of Europe’s worst atrocities since World War II.
About 1,000 victims are still reported missing, according to authorities.
“What a charmer he was!”
“Everyone called him “Brko” (“Moustache”). I never saw him without his moustache. What a charmer he was!” said Mirzeta Karic of her father, Sejdalija Alic, with a gentle smile on her face.
In December 1993, more than a year after the start of Bosnia’s inter-ethnic war, “Brko” and his daughter, then aged 18, were the last to flee their village of Jagodnja, in the Srebrenica area, under fire from Bosnian Serb forces.
“It was snowing and I only had socks on my feet. Each of us with a fifty-kilo (110-pound) bag of cereals on our backs, we headed for Srebrenica”, Karic, now 50, said.
“Protected Zone”
The United Nations had declared the ill-fated town a “protected zone”, drawing in tens of thousands of Muslims hoping to find refuge.
But they were trapped.
In early 1994, Karic was on the road again, evacuated from Srebrenica in a Red Cross convoy with her mother and her pregnant sister-in-law.
Her sick father and brother Sejdin remained.
“We’ll meet again one day”
“My father took me in his arms and started to cry. He told me: ‘We’ll meet again one day’. His words still ring in my ears. I never saw him again, and neither did I see my brother,” Karic, who has lived in Sweden since 1998, told AFP.
She is now returning to Bosnia to attend her father’s funeral on Friday.
He will be the 50th member of her family to be laid to rest at the memorial cemetery in Potocari alongside her five uncles and their five sons.
Her brother Sejdin, aged 22 when he was killed, was buried in 2003.
“One bone only”
“I’ve been able to endure everything, but I think this funeral will be the worst. We’re having a bone buried. I can’t describe the pain,” said Karic, who named her son after her father.
Only the lower jaw of her father was found in the mass graves where Bosnian Serb forces moved the corpses of the victims months after the massacre in a bid to cover up the crime.
Many of their remains were shredded by heavy machinery in the process, experts have said, often leaving forensic experts with not much more than a few bones to identify victims through DNA testing.
A jawbone will also be placed in the coffin of Hasib Omerovic, who will be buried on Friday.
“Thirty years on, I have nothing to wait for anymore,” said his wife, Mevlida Omerovic.
“It’s better to have them buried, even if it’s just two bones, and to be able to visit his grave with the children,” the 55-year-old added.
Hasib Omerovic and his brother were detained together and probably executed at one of the five main mass execution sites in the Srebrenica region, she said. He was 33 years old.
“Take good care of our children”
The family separated on July 11, 1995, when Mevlida Omerovic left with their nine-year-old daughter and six-year-old son for the UN base.
Hasib and Mevlida said goodbye in the street.
“All he told me was: ‘Take good care of our children’. Those were his last words,” she remembered in tears at her current home in Srebrenik, in Bosnia’s northeast.
“When I look at my children, I see him. He was at the best age to live, handsome as can be, like a rose, intelligent. But it is fate.”
“We were happy”
Hasib’s sister will not be attending his funeral. She died a week before.
“Her three sons were killed, her husband, her two brothers. She lost all her men. Her heart couldn’t hold on any longer,” Mevlida Omerovic said.
The woman still hopes to find the remains of another brother, Senad, aged 17 when he was killed, in the woods around Srebrenica.
With her brother’s photo in one hand and her husband’s in the other, Mevlida Omerovic recalled their pre-war life with a spark in her blue eyes.
The couple had just constructed a house. Hasib worked in a large bauxite mine, where he maintained the machines, and Mevlida worked in a village grocery store.
“A beautiful soul, nice with everyone. He had a lot of Serb friends who respected him (before the war) and I thought that would save him,” she said.
“We loved and respected each other. We were happy. That’s the greatest wealth. One can buy everything but not happiness. However, happiness doesn’t last long. Everything beautiful is short-lived,” she said.
