Wounds of Srebrenica massacre still felt 30 years later

(OSV News) -- The wounds inflicted on innocent men, women and children during the Srebrenica massacre, one of the worst atrocities to happen in Europe since World War II, are hardly healed 30 years later.

The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution in May 2024 to commemorate the genocide every year on July 11 -- the day killings begun.

Thousands of people from Bosnia-Herzegovina and around the world gathered in Srebrenica to mark the 30th anniversary of a massacre July 11, as remains of the thousands killed continue to be identified and buried.

For survivor Nedzad Avdic, who was 17 years old at the time of the massacre that took the lives of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys -- among them his father and four uncles, "the nightmares never stopped."

"It was early in the morning on 6 July when the first shots were fired," Avdic said in an interview with KNA German Catholic news agency, published July 9. He hid with relatives in a nearby forest, where Serbian nationalists eventually apprehended them.

After witnessing countless friends, relatives, and neighbours taken to be executed at a school, he, along with others, was taken to a quarry for execution.

"People were falling over next to me in rows. At that moment, I just wanted to die," he told KNA. Miraculously, he survived after he was found still alive by villagers, despite sustaining wounds to his chest, arm, and leg from machine gun fire.

The 1995 Srebrenica massacre remains a dark chapter in the war following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, which claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995, according to the United Nations.

The massacre of thousands of Muslims, primarily men and teenage boys, was formally recognized as an act of genocide by both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, or ICTY, in 2004 and the International Court of Justice, commonly known as The Hague, in 2007.

According to the ICTY, 14 individuals were convicted for genocide, crimes against humanity, and other war crimes committed during the war, including Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army, who was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2017.

From 1945 to 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina was one of six republics that made up the socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, alongside Serbia (which included the autonomous province of Kosovo), Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia.

Yugoslavia was home to a diverse mix of ethnic groups. After the death of President Josip Tito in 1980, tensions among these groups intensified, as many began pushing for independence. This was particularly pronounced among the Serbs, whose rising nationalism was fueled by the growing influence of Slobodan Miloševic in Serbia and Radovan Karadžic in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The massacre of Srebrenica "unfolded in a United Nations 'safe area' that proved to be anything but that, in a country patrolled to no discernible effect by NATO jets, and in a context of endless evasion by Western governments reluctant to intervene," wrote Roger Cohen in The New York Times July 11, underlining one more embarrassing element of the atrocity -- indifference of the Western world and ineffectiveness of foreign peacekeeping missions. Cohen has covered the Balkan war since 1992.

Despite the recognition of the atrocities committed during the war, especially in Srebrenica, many in today's Serbia continue to downplay the events -- in 2024 Serbians vehemently opposed the U.N.-proposed International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.

"The Serbian Orthodox Church, like the Serbian political class, recognizes that this was a terrible crime, but openly denies that it was an act of genocide," Father Dražen Kustura, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Sarajevo, said in an interview published July 9 with Aid to the Church in Need, or ACN.

While the Catholic Church has always participated in commemorating the genocide along with representatives of the country's Muslim community, Father Kustura said that "at this time, it is almost impossible to expect a joint activity" with the Orthodox Church, given its view on the massacre.

"As long as they maintain this position, it will be difficult to have any joint initiatives," he said.

Father Kustura told ACN the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre served as "a reminder of how powerful evil can be" as well as "an opportunity for justice and to condemn the crimes, while at the same time working towards reconciliation."

However, he also said that there "is still not a general idea that all crimes, regardless of who committed them, should be condemned" and that all victims "have the same value."

"Rather than an opportunity for personal and collective atonement, these anniversaries of the Srebrenica genocide have become a focus for new division, and for reopening wounds from the past, making it even more difficult to achieve reconciliation and forgiveness," he told ACN.

Nevertheless, Father Kustura said that while the atrocity of Srebrenica made it a place of hatred and suffering, "it can also become a place of reconciliation and conversion."

"A clear message can radiate from here: that nothing good ever comes from war and crime, and that instead it is worth fighting for peace and mutual respect, in diversity and justice," he said.