Slobodan Maricic
BBC journalist
Exactly three decades ago to the day, when units of the Army of Republika Srpska entered Srebrenica, 67-year-old Fata Bektić tried to seek refuge at the United Nations peacekeeping base in Potočari.
She was accompanied by her husband and three daughters, including Behija Rotić, now 58.
"When Srebrenica fell, we left," she remembers.
On the ten-kilometer journey, her mother lost her life.
Her remains, only found in June 2021, will be buried on July 11 at the Memorial Center in Potočari, during the commemoration of three decades of the massacre of more than 8.000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica.
"I feel both heavy and good... I'm glad to know where her bones are, if I ever can and if I'm alive, to know where to go," Behija Rotić tells the BBC.
"At least now we know where they are, that they're not scattered around the forest," adds her husband Ramzo.
Fata is the only woman to be buried in the collective funeral. The remains of six other men, two of whom were 19 years old at the time of their deaths, will be buried alongside her.
So far, more than 7.000 remains of victims of a crime that has been labeled genocide by international courts have been found in dozens of mass graves.
Some of the victims' families will bury one or two bones, the statement said. Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) whose researchers are still searching for the bodies of about a thousand people today.
"A few bones of my brother Amir were found, five in one mass grave," 58-year-old Mensur Mujcic told the BBC.
"I waited for something else to be collected, but then I decided to bury what was found... To at least mark his grave in some way."
So far, 6.765 victims have been buried at the Memorial Center in Potočari, including 27 women, according to data from the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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"The closer this day got, the harder it became for me...
"I tried to stay normal, but I feel some disgusting inner heaviness, tightness," says Mensur Mujčić, Amir's brother.
"I'm thinking about everything - my father, who was buried in Potočari in 2003, now the time has come for my brother."
Behija Rotić will not attend the funeral. She had hip surgery and cannot move.
"I can't go, but my relatives, my husband and other family members will," she says.
"All this shook me... There's no one left, no grandmother, no mother, no sisters, no brothers, no one."
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague has convicted 20 people from the political and military leadership of Republika Srpska, one of the two post-war entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for war crimes committed in Srebrenica.
Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, Republika Srpska Army General Ratko Mladic and three other defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide.
So far, more than 50 people have been sentenced to a total of more than 700 years in prison for the crimes in Srebrenica in The Hague and before domestic courts in Serbia and Bosnia.
On May 23, 2024, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring July 11 as International Day of Remembrance of the Srebrenica Genocide.
The resolution condemns the denial of genocide, as well as the glorification of war criminals.
Official Belgrade and the authorities of Republika Srpska continue to deny that genocide was committed in Srebrenica, instead saying that it was a "terrible crime."
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Mensur Mujčić was informed "four or five years ago" that his brother's remains had been found.
He didn't tell anyone.
"I somehow took on that burden completely, kept it all inside and kept quiet until last year," he recalls.
He didn't dare tell his mother that only a few bones had been found.
He waited for more remains to be found, but his mother passed away in February 2025.
He then decided to bury his brother's found remains at the Memorial Center in Potočari.
He thinks about his brother often.
He was “highly educated,” worked as an engineer in a bauxite mine, and was “a much better person than him,” he says.
"Thirty years is a long time in calendar terms, but for me it all passed like an instant... In fact, time stands still, it doesn't pass."
"After that event, I often wondered why Allah didn't leave my brother and father, who were far better than me... Why didn't they stay alive while I was gone," he says quietly.
Watch the video: How the 'Flower of Srebrenica' was created and what it represents
Srebrenica, July 1995.
In the first years of the war, fighting raged around Srebrenica for a long time.
It was one of three Bosniak enclaves in eastern Bosnia – along with Žepa and Goražde – surrounded by territories controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska.
Thousands of Bosniak refugees from other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina sought safety in Srebrenica, a small mining town nestled among the hills that the United Nations (UN) declared a safe zone in 1993.
A small number of UN peacekeeping units were deployed in Srebrenica and its surroundings, with the aim of protecting around 40.000 people surrounded on all sides.
During the war years, the city was without water and electricity, and food rarely arrived.
In the early morning hours of July 11, 1995, units of the Army of Republika Srpska entered Srebrenica.
They separated men and young men from the elderly, women and children, who were taken by bus to territory controlled by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In just a few days, more than 8.000 Bosniaks were killed.
Members of the Serbian paramilitary unit Scorpions also participated in the crimes.
The bodies were buried in mass graves that were later dug up in an attempt to cover up the scale of the crime, and the remains were transported by truck to various locations around Srebrenica, as established by a series of court rulings.
Many so-called secondary graves have still not been found, leaving more than 1.000 people still missing.
"In Tuzla, there are the remains of nine victims who have been identified through DNA testing, but we still do not have the families' consent for their burial," the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced.
"Despite the passage of time, families are having a hard time deciding on a funeral due to the incompleteness of the skeleton, so they are waiting for the discovery of other remains."
The remains of 45 more victims have been identified through DNA testing, but families have not yet made official identifications.
Watch the video: Srebrenica - suffering and memories, three decades later
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Bonus video:
