‘It's an honour to be able to send a warning': Defiant Sarajevo a scarred survivor of Bosnia's war
vicious ethnic war in the 1990s that tore apart and still mark Bosnia's capital
.
Serb forces besieged Sarajevo from April 1992 to February 1996, shelling its mostly Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population from surrounding hills and terrorising them with sharpshooters who turned a central avenue into a deadly 'sniper alley'. The longest siege of a major city in modern history killed more than 11,000 people, including 1,600 children.
Some buildings and pavements are still pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel. Statues and plaques honour the dead. Museums on the war, the siege and the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide now feature alongside the city's historic places of worship on the itineraries of most visitors.
There has been no serious ethnic violence in Sarajevo and Bosnia since the end of the siege and implementation of the 1995 Dayton Accords, which halted three years of fighting between Serb, Bosniak and Croat forces that claimed about 100,000 lives.
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Yet the legacy of the war – preserved and entrenched in some ways by the very peace deal that concluded it – still shapes the daily lives of many Bosnians from children in segregated schools to staff at national museums, galleries, libraries and archives who struggle to secure funding from politicians who work along ethnic lines.
Bosnia's historical museum in central Sarajevo is one of seven national cultural institutions that were 'orphaned' by the war and a settlement that established two ethnically based, semi-autonomous 'entities' – Serb-run Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation – linked only by weak central authorities in Sarajevo.
That set-up put no one in charge of the sensitive issues of culture and education at state level, leaving postwar policy and funding to regional and local officials who favour ethno-nationalism over more inclusive narratives. By allocating posts according to ethnicity, the Dayton-imposed political system perversely rewards such an approach.
People walk past marks made by a mortar strike in central Sarajevo during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin
'We are hearing for 30 years that we are nobody's responsibility, because no one wants to take responsibility for delivering things to everyone, to all communities,' Elma Hasimbegovic, director of the historical museum, says.
'We are a national museum, but there is no direct state institution that could take over the founding rights of the museum.
'Dayton made a system in which nobody has responsibility for anything ... So everyone is passing the ball and no one is taking responsibility. Officials have no responsibility and live comfortably, that's why they don't want to change Dayton. And we are suffering because of this.'
The museum survives by seeking grants on a project-by-project basis, which makes for a precarious existence. At the same time, it preserves the museum's independence and national approach in a country where ethnic loyalties colour every aspect of public life.
'If we were integrated into state structures as they are now, it would bring us into a corrupted and toxic system, into the system of a state that is not functional and that would make us think about being Bosniak or Serb or Croat. So far, we've managed to stay out of this system and this way of thinking,' Hasimbegovic says.
'We don't want some politicians in parliament deciding about our politics, about our cultural work ... Even if we might get more security in our funding, it would be the end of our institution's promotion of shared history and heritage and culture.'
Elma Hasimbegovic, director of the historical museum of Bosnia. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin
Dozens of schools across the country remain ethnically segregated three decades after the war, with children from different communities following different curriculums in different classrooms, only mingling at break times or the end of the day.
'It is not good,' Christian Schmidt, the international high representative for Bosnia, says of the state of reconciliation efforts.
'This incredible structure of 'one roof, two schools' ... is so counterproductive for cohesion and European integration. Some of those who promote this ... have never realised that European integration needs acceptance of others, it needs working together.'
The Bosnian war has been investigated and documented in great detail, particularly by the
United Nations
tribunal for former Yugoslavia in
The Hague
, which heard from more than 4,500 witnesses and produced more than 2.5 million pages of transcripts between 1993 and its closure in 2017.
Yet there is no sign of a national consensus emerging on the war, and Serb officials still reject international court rulings that Serb forces committed genocide 30 years ago by massacring 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in and around Srebrenica. They also threaten to take Republika Srpska out of Bosnia rather than allow deeper integration in the Muslim-majority country.
Hasimbegovic suspects there will 'never' be a national school textbook on the history of the war, because Bosniak, Serb and Croat narratives are irreconcilable.
'They are training kids to be nationalists and don't give them constructive dialogues about the past or a critical point of view,' she says. 'Even if kids don't know much [history], they are trained to think 'correctly' as regards the politics around things.'
Pulitzer-prize winning Bosnian photographer Damir Sagolj. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin
Damir Sagolj served with the Bosnian army in the war before becoming a Pulitzer-prize winning photographer. He now has an exhibition in Sarajevo to mark the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide.
'It's something we have to get out, because if we don't then very soon it might be too late and certain pages of history would be left blank,' he says of the need for his generation to document the war and its aftermath. 'And that would be the worst thing, because then everybody would be invited to write whatever s**t they want there.'
Bosnia 'never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity', he says. 'We could have rebuilt the pillars of civil society, but instead we kept building nationalists parties, churches and the rest.'
The interior of the restored Vijecnica, Sarajevo city hall, which was severely damaged by Serb shelling in 1992. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin
The Vijecnica, Sarajevo's city hall, was opened in 1896 when Austria-Hungary ruled Bosnia. That ended with the
first World War
, which was sparked by the June 1914 assassination of Habsburg archduke Franz Ferdinand just 400 metres away after he had visited the building by the Miljacka river.
The Vijecnica was severely damaged by Serb shelling in August 1992 when it served as Bosnia's national library, destroying more than two million books, magazines and manuscripts. It reopened as the city hall in 2014 after meticulous renovation.
'I was 14 years old when the war started, and for the whole war I was in Sarajevo,' mayor Predrag Puharic says in his office in the Vijecnica.
'For me and generations afterwards it is important to spread the word globally – to spread the warning globally ... We survived the war, the siege, atrocities, in Sarajevo and the whole of Bosnia. Maybe it is an honour to be able to send a warning.'
Predrag Puharic, mayor of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin
Puharic, who is a Serb, condemns denial of the Srebrenica genocide, and the corruption and zero-sum ethnic politics that still blight Bosnia.
'What is frustrating ... is that we don't want that kind of politics and narrative any more. What is in the national interest of all people here is to be in the
European Union
– not decisions that favour some politician's family or something,' he says.
'Ten or 15 years ago, most people left Bosnia because of the economic situation. Now even people who are in a pretty good financial situation are leaving because of the politics.'
Despite its wartime scars, Sarajevo can still be a symbol of tolerance, Puharic says.
'I have friends who are Srebrenica survivors. It's not news every time we have coffee, but it would be news if we ever had a fight. We must remember that we've had no fighting since the war,' he says.
Mosques, Catholic and Orthodox churches and a synagogue cluster close together in Sarajevo's old town. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin
'Just across the street you can see a pro-
Palestine
protest and 40 metres down the street is a synagogue. And there is no police presence. Mosques and churches are side by side.
'The Sarajevo mayor is not a Bosniak. Can you find another city in the region where a person who is not from the majority community is leading the city? And when I was appointed, nobody cared – we just had a new mayor.'
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Irish Times
11-07-2025
- Irish Times
Leaders join thousands of mourners in Bosnia to mark 30 years since Srebrenica genocide
International officials joined thousands of mourners in eastern Bosnia on Friday to mark 30 years since Serb forces massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica . They also attended the burial of victims whose remains are still being pieced together from mass graves. Leaders of western states and most neighbouring countries called for a renewed commitment to prevent genocide anywhere in the world, while Serbia and Bosnian Serb officials continue to reject international court rulings that the massacre was genocide. 'In this moment of remembrance, we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to accountability and truth,' European Council president Antonio Costa said. He was speaking at a commemoration ceremony at the vast cemetery at Potocari, just outside Srebrenica, where 6,772 Srebrenica victims are buried after seven were laid to rest on Friday. Srebrenica genocide: Why Bosnia is still divided 30 years on Listen | 39:42 'There is no room in Europe - or anywhere else - for genocide denial, revisionism, or the glorification of those responsible. Denying such horrors only poisons our future. It is our duty to confront and acknowledge the full truth. This is the first step in ensuring that such atrocities never happen again,' Mr Costa said. READ MORE A flower is seen on a monument with the names of those killed in the Srebrenica genocide. Photograph: Armin Durgut/AP 'Even as we are all together to mourn and remember, we also carry the promise of renewal ... A journey from war and genocide to peace and prosperity. The European Union is a project of peace, born from the ashes of a tragic war and driven by a vision of reconciliation. This is the same vision that inspires us on the enlargement to the western Balkan countries. We believe the place of Bosnia ... is in the European Union.' Bosnia's progress towards the EU is stymied by a dysfunctional political system imposed by the Dayton Accords - which ended a 1992-1995 war that killed 100,000 people – and by Serb rejection of deeper integration in the Muslim-majority country and their refusal to accept genocide was committed at Srebrenica. [ 'I'm remembering Srebrenica while Srebrenica is happening in Gaza' Opens in new window ] Serbian and Bosnian Serb leaders acknowledge that grave crimes took place, but deny that it was genocide against Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). A woman reacts as she sits among gravestones at the memorial cemetery in the village of Potocari on the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. Photograph: Andrej Isakovic/AFP 'Today marks 30 years since the terrible crime in Srebrenica was committed,' Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic said on social media. 'We cannot change the past, but we must change the future. Once again, on behalf of the citizens of Serbia, I express my condolences to the families of the Bosniak victims, confident that a similar crime will never happen again.' The wartime Bosnian Serb political and military leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic , were convicted of committing genocide at Srebrenica by a United Nations tribunal at The Hague, and two international courts ruled that genocide took place. Srebrenica had been declared as a UN 'safe haven' for Bosniaks from a Serb campaign of so-called ethnic cleansing in eastern Bosnia. However, the UN, Nato and western governments stood idle as Mladic's forces overran the area on July 11th, 1995, expelled Dutch peacekeepers and seized thousands of Bosniak civilians. [ 'Facing the past is still our biggest problem': Bosnia divided 30 years after Srebrenica genocide Opens in new window ] The men and boys were separated from the women and executed over the following days in fields, forests, warehouses, farm buildings, cultural centres and other locations. Later, Serbs excavated mass graves with bulldozers, moved bodies across the country in dump trucks and reburied them to hide war crimes. As a result, the remains of many victims were dispersed between multiple graves, and only pieced together over time using advanced DNA identification techniques. 'The mass identification of victims in Bosnia…has demonstrated that the fog of war cannot completely obscure the truth – and when the truth is recovered, justice becomes possible,' said Munira Subasic, president of the Mothers of Srebrenica movement and Kathryne Bomberger, director-general of the International Commission on Missing Persons, in a joint statement.
Irish Times
11-07-2025
- Irish Times
‘I'm remembering Srebrenica while Srebrenica is happening in Gaza'
The world will mark 30 years since the Srebrenica genocide on Friday, but promises of 'never again' from western leaders ring hollow to many survivors of the Serb massacre of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. Two years before the slaughter led by Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic's troops, Srebrenica had been declared a United Nations safe haven, where Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) civilians would be protected by international peacekeepers. But Mladic was right to think the promise of protection was empty. As his forces shelled and overran the enclave, lightly armed Dutch soldiers in the area pleaded for air strikes. UN, Nato and western leaders dithered, and Serb troops simply expelled the peacekeepers and took control over tens of thousands of terrified Bosniaks. 'We were left to be murdered. Nobody cared,' says Jasmin Jusufovic, who as an eight-year-old in Srebrenica saw his father taken away to be executed by Serb soldiers who also killed all his other closest adult male relatives. 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I remember watching him, voiceless but everything inside me was screaming. And he just put his finger to his lips to tell me to stay silent and keep going.' He was shot dead in the village of Pilica, where Serb soldiers executed hundreds of prisoners in a cultural centre. [ Srebrenica genocide: Why Bosnia is still divided 30 years on Opens in new window ] 'Three of my mother's brothers were also murdered in Srebrenica, and a fourth in Drinjaca,' Jusufovic says. 'My father's brother was murdered in Srebrenica. The husbands of my father's sisters, four of them, were also murdered. The husband of my mother's sister was also murdered in Srebrenica, as was his father. The father of my aunt was also murdered, as were more distant relatives.' A Bosnian Muslim woman visits gravestones during a funeral ceremony for 50 newly-identified Bosnian Muslim victims, at the Potocari Memorial Centre and Cemetery in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in July 2022. Photograph: Jasmin Brutus/EPA Jusufovic's father was buried in the memorial cemetery at Potocari only in 2012. Like many victims of Serb killings, his remains were found in multiple graves after Serbs moved bodies using mechanical diggers and dump trucks to try to hide war crimes. Seven victims recently identified through DNA analysis will be buried there on Friday. International courts ruled that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide and, after 14 years on the run, Mladic was found guilty of genocide along with Radovan Karadzic, wartime political leader of the Bosnian Serbs. Serbia and Republika Srpska – an autonomous Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina – acknowledge that grave crimes were committed at Srebrenica but deny it was genocide, and glorification of war criminals is not uncommon in Serb society, making reconciliation with Bosniaks a remote prospect. Emir Suljagic, head of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin 'The facts of this case have been established so many times over and are readily available,' says Emir Suljagic, head of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre that is housed in the former battery factory that became the doomed base for UN peacekeepers. 'We're not going to debate facts. When facts are not debated, then we can sit down and have any kind of conversation. This is the most researched and investigated mass atrocity in the 20th century. DNA techniques, satellite technology and all other types of electronic technology were used. So join reality, then we can talk.' [ 'It's an honour to be able to send a warning': Defiant Sarajevo a scarred survivor of Bosnia's war Opens in new window ] In advance of Friday's commemoration events, UN secretary general António Guterres acknowledged that 'the United Nations and the world failed the people of Srebrenica. This collective failure was not an accident of history. It was the result of policies, propaganda and international indifference.' Yet such statements sound false to many Bosniaks when the West cannot find the conviction to stop current conflicts, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine or Israel's onslaught against Gaza . 'Today what hurts me, and I'm having serious trouble grasping, is that I'm remembering Srebrenica while Srebrenica is happening in Gaza,' Jusufovic says. 'What have we learned from Srebrenica if we are allowing all of this to happen again now? Every kid I see ... their soul being ripped from their body with shock and tragedy, shaking with starvation – was me 30 years ago,' he adds. 'Whenever I see international officials empathising about Srebrenica while staying silent on Palestine – excuse me, I don't believe a word of what you are saying. If you really mean it, then do something. The whole point of Srebrenica is never again – anywhere.'
Irish Times
11-07-2025
- Irish Times
‘The whole point of Srebrenica is never again – anywhere': West's sympathy rings hollow to many survivors of genocide
The world will mark 30 years since the Srebrenica genocide on Friday, but promises of 'never again' from western leaders ring hollow to many survivors of the Serb massacre of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. Two years before the slaughter led by Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic's troops, Srebrenica had been declared a United Nations safe haven, where Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) civilians would be protected by international peacekeepers. But Mladic was right to think the promise of protection was empty. As his forces shelled and overran the enclave, lightly armed Dutch soldiers in the area pleaded for air strikes. UN, Nato and western leaders dithered, and Serb troops simply expelled the peacekeepers and took control over tens of thousands of terrified Bosniaks. 'We were left to be murdered. Nobody cared,' says Jasmin Jusufovic, who as an eight-year-old in Srebrenica saw his father taken away to be executed by Serb soldiers who also killed all his other closest adult male relatives. 'We were put in a concentration camp under an open sky and then on July 11th ... you are trusting the Serbs – who have shown you for the past four years what they are capable of – to do something humane in Srebrenica,' he says. 'So as much as the culprits and responsibility for the genocide are Serb, it is also on the international community ... Because this is a genocide that was served on a plate to the Serbs.' Jasmin Jusufovic, a Bosniak who was eight years old when he survived the Srebrenica genocide, in which Bosnian Serb troops killed his father and all his other closest adult male relatives. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin The Bosnian war was in its fourth year when the Serbs seized Srebrenica. Jusufovic and his parents had been driven from their home in the village of Drinjaca, 55km northwest of the town, when Serbs attacked the area in May 1992. 'We were having lunch for Eid. Everything my mother had prepared for the festival was left on the table. We just had to go.' With his parents and members of his extended family, Jusufovic watched from the surrounding hills as Serb armour destroyed their house and the village mosque. They joined waves of Bosniaks who were being put to flight by a Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing in eastern Bosnia. The desperate situation was compounded by a western arms embargo on Bosnia that put its military at a huge disadvantage to Serb forces that had access to large stockpiles of ex-Yugoslav army weapons. In January 1994, the family had to flee again as Serb units bore down on the town of Konjevic Polje. They trekked through deep snow to reach Potocari – a village outside Srebrenica that is now the site of a burial ground for more than 6,700 victims of the genocide – and Jusufovic remembers being chilled to the bone when they arrived. 'A family friend in Srebrenica gave us a house to live in, because it was empty after his mother had been killed by the Serbs. Ten of us lived in two rooms. And I started to go to school in Srebrenica,' Jusufovic recalls. 'I always remember my family trying to live as normally as they could, no matter what the circumstances. Spring came and I remember everyone going out of the house and finding a bit of land to plant and grow something,' he says. 'I was getting this feeling of life functioning. My parents and other relatives were there, I was going to school, making friends. I could forget about the siege happening around us. As a kid you don't have big territory – just your house and your school. Sporadic gunfire and shelling intensified as Serb advances in 1995 made a mockery of western declarations that Srebrenica should be a demilitarised zone. 'On July 8th, I was woken up early by a rumbling noise that I could feel in my bones, as if it was coming through the ground. The attack on Srebrenica had started,' says Jusufovic. 'We were so heavily bombarded that it felt like we were boiling in a pot. There would be a few minutes of respite, maybe when they were reloading, when we could run to check on my grandmother or uncles or cousins. It was all frantic running.' By the morning of July 11th it was too dangerous to stay in Srebrenica. Jusufovic's parents again gathered up a few essentials and he wondered which books to stuff into his rucksack. He chose The Little Prince, a children's encyclopedia and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: 'I remember looking out from our house, which overlooked the road, and seeing a sea of heads running,' he says. Thousands of people sought protection at the Dutch peacekeepers' base at a former battery factory in Potocari, as Mladic's triumphant men roamed the area. 'Don't be afraid, no one will harm you,' Mladic told terrified Bosniaks, as he and his men threw chocolates and cigarettes to their new prisoners. To his own people Mladic gave a different message, peppered with slurs that Serbs have used against Muslims since the days of Ottoman rule in the Balkans. 'Here we are, on July 11th, 1995, in Serb Srebrenica. We give this town to the Serb people as a gift,' Mladic said in an address filmed by a Serb cameraman. 'Finally ... the time has come to take revenge on the Turks in this region.' First, the Serb troops took away Bosniak men trapped outside the locked gates of the packed battery factory. Two days later, the Serbs ordered people inside the UN base to come out, and the peacekeepers just looked on. Jusufovic and his mother climbed into a waiting truck with other women and children, as the Serbs separated out the men and some of the boys. 'I saw the Serbs pushing my father away. He was holding my red jacket. I remember watching him, voiceless but everything inside me was screaming. And he just put his finger to his lips to tell me to stay silent and keep going.' He was shot dead in the village of Pilica, where Serb soldiers executed hundreds of prisoners in a cultural centre. [ Srebrenica genocide: Why Bosnia is still divided 30 years on Opens in new window ] 'Three of my mother's brothers were also murdered in Srebrenica, and a fourth in Drinjaca,' Jusufovic says. 'My father's brother was murdered in Srebrenica. The husbands of my father's sisters, four of them, were also murdered. The husband of my mother's sister was also murdered in Srebrenica, as was his father. The father of my aunt was also murdered, as were more distant relatives.' A Bosnian Muslim woman visits gravestones during a funeral ceremony for 50 newly-identified Bosnian Muslim victims, at the Potocari Memorial Centre and Cemetery in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in July 2022. Photograph: Jasmin Brutus/EPA Jusufovic's father was buried in the memorial cemetery at Potocari only in 2012. Like many victims of Serb killings, his remains were found in multiple graves after Serbs moved bodies using mechanical diggers and dump trucks to try to hide war crimes. Seven victims recently identified through DNA analysis will be buried there on Friday. International courts ruled that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide and, after 14 years on the run, Mladic was found guilty of genocide along with Radovan Karadzic, wartime political leader of the Bosnian Serbs. Serbia and Republika Srpska – an autonomous Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina – acknowledge that grave crimes were committed at Srebrenica but deny it was genocide, and glorification of war criminals is not uncommon in Serb society, making reconciliation with Bosniaks a remote prospect. Emir Suljagic, head of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin 'The facts of this case have been established so many times over and are readily available,' says Emir Suljagic, head of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre that is housed in the former battery factory that became the doomed base for UN peacekeepers. 'We're not going to debate facts. When facts are not debated, then we can sit down and have any kind of conversation. This is the most researched and investigated mass atrocity in the 20th century. DNA techniques, satellite technology and all other types of electronic technology were used. So join reality, then we can talk.' [ 'It's an honour to be able to send a warning': Defiant Sarajevo a scarred survivor of Bosnia's war Opens in new window ] In advance of Friday's commemoration events, UN secretary general António Guterres acknowledged that 'the United Nations and the world failed the people of Srebrenica. This collective failure was not an accident of history. It was the result of policies, propaganda and international indifference.' Yet such statements sound false to many Bosniaks when the West cannot find the conviction to stop current conflicts, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine or Israel's onslaught against Gaza . 'Today what hurts me, and I'm having serious trouble grasping, is that I'm remembering Srebrenica while Srebrenica is happening in Gaza,' Jusufovic says. 'What have we learned from Srebrenica if we are allowing all of this to happen again now? Every kid I see ... their soul being ripped from their body with shock and tragedy, shaking with starvation – was me 30 years ago,' he adds. 'Whenever I see international officials empathising about Srebrenica while staying silent on Palestine – excuse me, I don't believe a word of what you are saying. If you really mean it, then do something. The whole point of Srebrenica is never again – anywhere.'
