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Public displays of support for war crimes defendants, nationalist political rhetoric and Bosnian Serb officials’ denials of the Srebrenica genocide are causing unease among Bosniaks who have returned to the town after fleeing during the war.

Samir Mehic, a Bosnian guitarist nicknamed Bowie after his musical hero, was the rock’n’roll bard of wartime Srebrenica, but was killed in the July 1995 massacres alongside thousands of other men and boys from the town.

Over 200 children who were born just before or after the Srebrenica massacres in July 1995 had to grow up without ever knowing their fathers, who were killed by Bosnian Serb forces.

The latest in BIRN’s Forgotten Victims series examines how families were imprisoned, men killed and women raped at a Bosnian Serb-run detention camp near Zvornik in 1992 - until a teenage girl’s intervention led to the prisoners being freed.

War crimes in the village of Zepa just after the Srebrenica massacres in July 1995 were initially tried as genocide, but the charge was eventually dropped, and 25 years on, most suspects have never even been indicted.

Bosnia’s state court is rapidly running out of space for its ever-growing multitude of documents and evidence from war crimes trials, while the lack of an online archive is hampering lawyers and impeding public access to information.

The Austrian Green Party told BIRN why MPs backed a proposed ban on an annual commemoration in Austria of Croatian Nazi-allied troops and civilians killed in World War II which has become a get-together for nationalists.

Several Bosniaks were saved by courageous interventions from individual Serbs who defied potential risks to help neighbours during wartime in the town of Vlasenica in 1992, when many were detained and killed by Bosnian Serb forces.

Trials with large numbers of defendants cannot resume because of the problem of safe social distancing at the Bosnian state court, which will further slow the process of dealing with the country’s huge backlog of war crimes cases.

No one has ever been charged with the killing of at least four minibus passengers travelling from Pale to Ilijas for a funeral in July 1992, with an investigation concluding that the vehicle was a legitimate military target.

Feature

Nationalism Festers in Srebrenica, 25 Years after Genocide

Samir Played Guitar: The Life and Death of Srebrenica’s ‘Bowie’

‘I Only Know Dad from a Photo’: The Lost Fathers of Srebrenica

Forgotten Victims: How Bosnian Villagers Liberated a Wartime Detention Camp

As Srebrenica is Remembered, Zepa’s War Victims Feel Forgotten

Burden of Proof: Inside Bosnia’s War Trial Case Archives

Austrian MPs Vow to Ban Croats’ ‘Ultranationalist’ Bleiburg Events

Good Neighbours: How Three Serbs Saved Bosniaks in Wartime Vlasenica

Coronavirus Safeguards Stop Large-Scale Bosnian War Trials Resuming

Forgotten Victims: Ambush Kills Civilians Heading for Funeral

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