Flight From Massacre Site

Protected witness RM-249 said that, on the day of the fall of Srebrenica, July 11, 1995, he and his family sought shelter in the vicinity of the UNPROFOR Compound in Potocari, along with thousands of residents of the United Nations protected enclave.  
 
On the following day he witnessed the separation of men from women and children, who were taken away by buses. As he said, later than night he and his family hid in a house, where he saw traces of blood.
 
While carrying his four-year old girl, the witness, who was severely wounded in his knee with a grenade shrapnel piece in 1992, managed to get on one of the buses, along with his wife and mother, in the morning on July 13. He sat on the bus floor, hiding among many women and children.
 
He managed to stay in the bus until it arrived to its final destination – Luke village in the vicinity of Kladanj, despite frequent controls by VRS members. However, at that location Serb soldiers separated him from his family members, who were sent to Bosniak territories, along with other refugees, while he was taken to a nearby school building.
 
The witness and about twenty other Bosniaks were beaten up. Their valuable possessions were confiscated. After midnight they were taken to a place called Rasica Gaj by truck. As he said, Serb soldiers killed three captured Bosniaks right after they had gotten out of the truck and two other captives, when they tried to run away.
 
“The truck stopped…They killed three men while I was still in the truck. They opened a burst of fire at them, so they fell off the truck. Two men, who were sitting on the same bench as I, tried to run away. They were about ten metres away from the truck, when they too were shot,” the witness said, saying that he then jumped off the truck and saved himself by running down a steep slope.
 
Mladic, former Commander of the Main Headquarters of VRS, is charged with genocide against about 7,000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica in July 1995. In addition, he is charged with having terrorised citizens in Sarajevo, persecuted Bosniaks and Croats and taken UNPROFOR members hostage.
 
According to the charges against Mladic, 25 Bosniaks were killed in the vicinity of Tisca village in the night between July 13 and 14, 1995.
 
When asked by the Prosecutor whether Bosniak civilians could have stayed in Srebrenica after the fall of the town, witness RM-249 said that “Serb soldiers’ hatred was such” that “all those who would have stayed would know that they would die in Srebrenica.”  
 
During the cross-examination Mladic’s Defence attorney Miodrag Stojanovic suggested that the hatred was caused by Bosniak attacks from Srebrenica on the surrounding Serb villages in the period from 1993 to 1995.
 
Denying the allegation, witness RM-249 asked “why Srebrenica was blocked in the first place” and “why was a corridor” for evacuation of civilians “not made”. However, he said that “the hatred by Serb people and soldiers, which was created in the beginning”, was “increased, when desperate people” from Srebrenica “had to go to Serb villages” in order to find food.  
 
“Imagine that somebody locks us in this courtroom for five, six or ten months without food… We would have to find a way to break down the door,” the witness said.  

The trial of Mladic is due to continue on Thursday, August 22.