Hira Chatak dies: Bosnian mother searching for the boy's remains for 26 years

Hajra Cataq, a key figure in efforts to find the remains of over 8 thousand Bosnian Muslims killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and bring their attackers to justice, died Tuesday.

Catac, 78, spent the last 26 years struggling to find the remains of her son, who died in Europe's worst atrocity since World War II, broadcasts Klakosova.tv.

She lost 20 male relatives, including her husband and son Nino Cataq, Srebrenica correspondent for several Bosnian newspapers and other media during the 1992-1995 war, who was 26 years old when she died.

“Hajra Cataq died today without being able to attend the funeral of her son Nihad Nino Cataq,” announced the Srebrenica memorial centre in a statement, the AFP reported.

For 26 years “it maintained the memory of the courage of this war reporter from Srebrenica, encouraging others that the struggle for truth and justice cannot and should not cease”, the statement said.

Serbs killed more than 8,000 men and boys in the coming days and buried them in mass graves in the region.

Had I found a finger of my son, I would have had something to bury”, she said about AFP in 2010.

She led the Women of Srebrenica association in the northeastern town of Tuzla, where she left after the massacre.

Chatak organised a protest on 11th day of every month to seek the arrest of those responsible.

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his army chief Ratko Mladic were later sentenced to life imprisonment by a UN war crimes tribunal, especially for genocide in Srebrenica.

Local media reported that Cataq died after a long illness in Sarajevo.