15 minutes agoSrebrenica survivor has made a promise to himself
Periskopi(6 years ago)
(6 years ago)Srebrenica genocide survivor Ramiz Nukiq has made a promise to himself: It will seek the remains of mass murder victims outside the village of Kravica, 25 years ago, until the last of them is found. Walking through the forest over his house near Kravica, Nukic has found remains and personal things [...]
Srebrenica genocide survivor Ramiz Nukiq has made a promise to himself: It will seek the remains of mass murder victims outside the village of Kravica, 25 years ago, until the last of them is found.
Walking through the forest over his house near Kravica, Nukiq has found remains and personal things that have helped identify some 300 of 1,000-1,500 victims, thought to have died there in July 1995.
They are just a few of the more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were killed by Bosnian Serb troops in the Srebrenica genocide.
“My search has been made”, tells the Reuters news agency 59-year-old father of five.
He does not say that his research started 15 years ago, hoping to find the remains of his father, uncle, and two brothers who disappeared after the massacre, writes relief.
When I find a bone, it's like I find the whole body. I know a mother will find peace”, says Nukic, pointing to a human skull and a bone he found in the forest a few weeks ago.
He passes his findings to investigators at the Missing Persons Institute, which then must match human remains by DNA samples provided by relatives of the missing to identify them.
This month, 25 years since the massacre has occurred during the 1990s war in Bosnia.
Serbian forces, commanded by General Ratko Mladic, have attacked the eastern Srebrenica enclave, where about 40,000 Muslims had found refuge in a safe <x0-zone” under the protection of the United Nations.
After Srebrenica has fallen into the hands of Serbs on July 11, 1995, most women and children have been separated from men and transported by buses to a territory controlled by the Bosnian Army. The remaining men and boys have been killed, while most of those who have tried to flee into the woods have been caught, kept in prison, and executed.
The UN war crimes tribunal in the former Yugoslavia has concluded that the killings have constituted genocide and condemned Mladic and his political mentor, Radovan Karadzic, for genocide and other war crimes at Srebrenica.
After Serbs attacked Srebrenica, Nukic has sent his family to the United Nations protected camp in Potocari, while he has joined over 15,000 men in a forest rescue march.
He didn't survive, and he was the only one who returned to his village in 2002. He found the first skeleton while cleaning his ruined house.
About 130 men killed here are still undiscovered”, he said, speaking of Reuters agency from the murder site. “I will not give up the search until the last of them is”.
