Surviving Execution in Kravica

Testifying at Ratko Mladic’s trial at The Hague, witness RM-256 says that he survived the mass murder of Srebrenica Muslims in Kravica village, near Bratunac, in July 1995.

He told the Tribunal that, on the day of the fall of Srebrenica, July 11, he joined several thousands of able-bodied men, who tried to break through to Tuzla through the woods.  

He confirmed that he was a member of the 28th Division of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina and that he had “a hunting rifle”.

The witness surrendered to the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, in the vicinity of Konjevic Polje two days later. One of the captives was killed right away. His body was left on a meadow. General Mladic then appeared.

“Mladic came and said: ‘Do you know me?’. Some of us knew him, others did not…His first words were: ‘Naser (Oric) has left you and fled to Tuzla’…He said: ‘Your families have been evacuated today. You will be exchanged within the next day or two. It is too hot here, so we shall take you to a cooler place. Nobody will beat you. We shall give you food and water’,” witness RM-256 said.

The captives were then taken to a warehouse in Kravica. The witness said that the place was already been full of people, when he arrived.

“The last person who came in did not have a place to sit. A soldier cursed his mother and hit him on his loins. He opened a burst of fire at him. Then they began shooting all over the warehouse,” the witness said.
Mladic, the then Commander of the Republika Srpska Army, is charged with genocide against about 7,000 Srebrenica Muslims. According to the charges and previous verdicts, Serb forces killed about 1,000 Muslim captives in the warehouse in Kravica on July 13, 1995.

Describing the shooting, RM-256 said that bullets came from both sides of the warehouse, as well as through windows, adding that bombs were thrown into the warehouse as well.

The witness said that he was sitting next to the wall and that he hid behind bodies of killed captives, adding that he was covered with their blood. As he said he remained there the whole night, while the shooting continued, and the following day too.
“I neither moved nor watched. I heard soldiers laughing and talking. I heard a construction machine destroying the warehouse door and somebody giving an order to cover the bodies with hay,” witness RM-256 said.

In the evening on July 14 he managed to get out of the warehouse together with another survivor and ran away.

During the cross-examination the witness confirmed to Mladic’s Defence attorney Miodrag Stojanovic that Muslim men from Srebrenica attempted a breakthrough from Srebrenica through the woods as per an order by ABiH Commander Zulfo Tursunovic.

The trial of Mladic, who is also charged with other crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is due to continue on June 24.