Memories and Bones: The Missing of Srebrenica

Hundreds of Srebrenica victims’ families are still waiting for their loved ones’ remains to bury – but as time passes, it becomes more likely that only a few bones, if anything, will ever be found.

Hajra Catic last saw her son Nino on July 11, 1995, as Bosnian Serb forces were overrunning the then UN-protected ‘safe area’ of Srebrenica.

She went with other women, children and elderly people to the Potocari area of the eastern Bosnian town where a Dutch UN battalion was stationed, and Nino said he would try to make it through the woods with other men to safety in the Bosniak-controlled town of Tuzla.

He never got there, and his remains have never been discovered.

Hajra later received information that her son’s remains might be buried near a village called Bokcin Potok near Bratunac, not far from Srebrenica, but it was too dangerous to check if this was true.

“The area was covered with land mines in Bokcin Potok. I went up there three years ago and I wrote to everyone that it should be demined. They only demined part of it before New Year [in 2014] and they found the remains of five people,” Hajra told BIRN.

“Fifteen days ago there was a new exhumation and of course I went, but they just found one jaw bone… There was a piece of jewelry and some clothes… but they promised to continue demining,” she said.

As the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacres approached, Hajra was still waiting for the DNA identification process to be completed. She was hoping that the jaw bone might just belong to her son so that she could finally bury him at the Srebrenica memorial in Potocari along with the other 136 victims who will be laid to rest at the annual ceremony this year.

“It is difficult for me to wait. If they only found a finger, I would bury it,” she said.

An immense crime scene

Hajra’s son is one of around 1,200 people still designated as missing from the Srebrenica massacres. The Bosnian Missing Persons Institute says is little reliable information about remaining mass graves, and it is increasingly likely that some bodies will never be recovered.

So far more than 600 mass graves containing the bodies of people killed during the 1992-95 war have been found in Bosnia and Herzegovina – around 400 of them related to the Srebrenica massacres.

The remains of victims were executed by Bosnian Serb forces in places like Zvornik, Bratunac and Cerska have been found in mass graves dozens of kilometres from each other.

“The crime scene is unbelievable in size – 70 kilometres from north to south and 40 kilometres east to west,” Jean-Rene Ruez, an investigator for the Hague Tribunal prosecution from 1995 to 2001, told BIRN.

To make the search for victims even harder, in October 1995, Bosnian Serb forces began a mission to dig up many of the bodies and transfer them to so-called ‘secondary graves’.

Even parts of bodies were split up, said Amor Masovic from the Bosnian Missing Persons Institute. The remains from one young man from Srebrenica were found in two separate mass graves, 30 kilometres from each another.

“Also, within one site, the remains of that same young man were found in one part of the grave, in the south-western part, and the other parts in the centre of the grave, which has slowed down the identification and also means that some victims will never be identified,” said Masovic.

According to the Hague Tribunal prosecution, 29 such secondary graves containing the remains of Srebrenica genocide victims have been discovered so far.

The biggest mass graves were found in places like Cerska, Glogova, Branjevo and Lazete, many containing the remains of more than 100 victims.

The secondary graves, according to the Hague Tribunal prosecution, were found several years after the war primarily because the United States produced aerial images which showed patches of earth disturbed during the reburial operation conducted by Bosnian Serb forces in the autumn of 1995.

As regards the victims who have still not been located, Masovic estimated that there could be some 60 more mass graves and several hundred individual burial sites. But some of them will certainly not be found because of a lack of information about the sites, problems with resources and the fact that some victims were thrown into rivers and their bodies are now irretrievable, he said.

Fragments of a life

The Bosnian Missing Persons Institute said that many more victims could have been laid to rest in Srebrenica this year if families had decided to bury small parts of skeletons that have been found and identified.

Lejla Cengic from the institute said that around 400 remains which have already been identified using DNA matching are currently at the Podrinje Identification Centre in Tuzla, but the families are against the burials because they are hoping to find more parts of their loved ones’ bodies.

“A large number of Srebrenica victims are incomplete because they were found in secondary graves, so many families are waiting for the rest of the body to be found,” said Cengic. In some cases, she added, just one bone has been identified from a victim’s entire body.

Fatima Ahmic escaped from Bosnian Serb forces after they seized Srebrenica in July 1995, but her son, brother and father did not.

She said that her son’s and brother’s bodies were found complete, allowing her to bury them, but her father’s body was not.

“They found a part of the jaw, an elbow and parts of legs. Those parts were found in three mass graves,” she said.

Her father’s body parts were found in 1996, but she waited until last year before agreeing to have him buried, still hoping that more of his remains would be discovered. “It was my father, he was whole… I would have liked for him to be found whole,” she said.

Munira Subasic meanwhile buried just two small bones from the body of her son Nermin. She encouraged other families to do the same. “We don’t know if they will find other parts and it is better this way,” she explained.

Camil Durakovic, the mayor of Srebrenica and the president of the committee of the committee organising this year’s commemoration and mass burial, also called on families to finally lay their relatives to rest.

“As we are aware of the [Bosnian Serb forces’] process of hiding bodies, it is clear we will not find some, and this is why I call on families to bury loved ones. It is better to have a grave and lay down your loved one at the memorial centre than have him listed as a missing person, even though parts have been found,” Durakovic told BIRN.

For Hajra Catic, there is no longer enough time now before Saturday’s commemoration to find out whether the jaw bone that was exhumed really belonged to her son who went missing 20 years ago or not.

When this year’s event is over, she will go back to what she has been doing for the past 20 years – waiting and hoping for the news that his remains have finally been identified.