Srebrenica Children Massacre
Encyclopedia
Srebrenica
Srebrenica is a town and municipality in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska. Srebrenica is a small mountain town, its main industry being salt mining and a nearby spa. During the Bosnian War, the town was the site of the July 1995 massacre,...
, eastern Bosnia, was shelled by the Army of Republika Srpska
Army of Republika Srpska
The Army of Republika Srpska ; Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian Vojska Republike Srpske ) also referred to as the Bosnian Serb Army, was the military of today's Republika Srpska which was then the "Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina", a self-proclaimed state within the internationally recognized...
in April 1993.
On 12 April 1993, the Bosnian Serbs told the UNHCR representatives that they would attack the town of Srebrenica
Srebrenica
Srebrenica is a town and municipality in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska. Srebrenica is a small mountain town, its main industry being salt mining and a nearby spa. During the Bosnian War, the town was the site of the July 1995 massacre,...
within two days unless the Bosniaks surrendered and they did. The same day, Serbs attacked Srebrenica's elementary school, killing 62 Bosniak children and wounding 152 others.,.
Sead Bekric, one of the survivors, gave evidence to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia describing how he was blinded at the age of 14, "There was a soccer field in Srebrenica on April 12th 1993 and there was a massive amount of people and we had a match and there was a shelling from Zvijezda, from the hill above Bratunac and the soccer field was shelled and I was blinded, together with 62 other people killed on the soccer field. ... My understanding there was about 60, 62 people killed on that day and there was over 100 wounded on that day." .
Survivors were treated by Dr Nedret Mujkanovic, who in an interview with Chuck Sudetic described how people were sitting around in front of the refugee-packed school and children were playing football and other games. "In less than one minute, seven rockets from a multiple-rocket launcher fell in an area about half the size of a football field." Dr. Mujkanovic told Sudetic that 36 people had died immediately and 102 had been seriously wounded. He said that the Serbs knew there was a camp of refugees from Cerska and Konjevic Polje in the school. "They directed their fire at that location. It came completely by surprise. There were pieces of women scattered about, and you could not see how to fit them together. I saw one dead mother lying on the ground and holding the hands of her two dead children. They all had no heads."http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/24/world/conflict-balkans-view-bosnia-war-srebrenica-hospital-s.html?sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=1
Dr Mujkanovic subsequently gave evidence to the ICTY about the shelling on 12 April. Srebrenica was under general attack. After the fall of Cerska and Konjevic Polje, their population of 15,000 or more had fled to Srebrenica and were accommodated in the primary and secondary schools in Srebrenica and even on the streets. When the school was shelled over 100 people were killed and approximately the same number seriously injured, including lots of women, lots of children and some men. Dr Mujkanovic also told the Tribunal how the evacuation of the injured had been shelled by the Serbs.http://www.icty.org/x/cases/oric/trans/en/050216ED.htm
There is some confusion about the final number of the dead. No formal investigation was conducted as far as Sead Bekric's evidence to the ICTY indicates.
The massacre and the injured Sead Bekric were seen as emblematic of the fate of the child victims of the violent war of ethnic cleansing unleashed in Bosnia. Sead's face was shown around the world by CNN television. The cover of the 10 May 1993 edition of Newsweek magazine printed one large, self-explanatory word across Sead's injured chest: "Bosnia".http://articles.latimes.com/1994-02-27/sports/sp-27915_1_winter-olympics?pg=2http://articles.latimes.com/1994-02-27/sports/sp-27915_1_winter-olympics?pg=2
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum features testimony by Christiane Amanpour about the massacre along with a report showing the arrival in Tuzla of a number of wounded child survivors including Sead Bekric..
This massacre occurred immediately before the United Nations declared Srebrenica a "safe haven", and more than two years before the Srebrenica genocide.
The massacre is one of the crimes with which Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were charged under the 24 July 1995 indictment issued by the International Criminal Tribunal for the fomer Yugoslavia.
The incident is also mentioned in Emir Suljagic
Emir Suljagic
Emir Suljagić Emir Suljagić Emir Suljagić (born 1975 in Bosnia and Herzegovina (then Yugoslavia) is the author of Postcards from the Grave, a first-hand account of the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre and life in the besieged enclave in north-eastern Bosnia before the UN "safe area" fell to the Bosnian...
's personal account of the siege and fall of Srebrenica, "Postcards from the Grave".