Across 100 kilometres, they walk where Srebrenica's dead once ran

Al Jazeera

5 days ago

Thirty years later, one man joins thousands on a three-day journey along the once-deadly path of remembrance in Bosnia. More than 7,000 people arrived in a tiny village in Bosnia to commemorate victims [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera] More than 7,000 people arrived in a tiny village in Bosnia to commemorate victims [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera]
Nezuk and Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina – Thirty years ago, thousands of Bosniak men and boys emerged emaciated from the forests surrounding the quiet Bosnian village of Nezuk.
Their gaunt faces and skeletal frames told only part of the story – visible hints of a far deeper horror that would fully emerge only after the mass graves of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide were found.
Today, Sejfudin Dizdarevic, 48, lives a life worlds apart from the desperate men who once fled through these woods. But he and thousands of others have just spent three days walking the same path.
'Knowing this history, it makes you humble,' Dizdarevic said about his participation in the annual remembrance walk called the Peace March. 'Knowing that you are going [on] the path [where] not only people were killed, but also [that those] who survived ... were hiding exactly in the spot [in] which you are marching now.' A banner flies in the village of Nezuk, where the march began on July 8 [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera]
In July 1995, the town of Srebrenica and surrounding villages fell to Bosnian Serb forces, whose nationalist and territorial ambitions were emboldened by the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia.
Bosniak males, who were being hunted, fled the area, crossing the thickly forested slopes of eastern Bosnia for days and even weeks on end in a journey now referred to as 'the death march'.
During their trek, they evaded deceptive calls by Bosnian Serb forces, who tried to lure them to surrender with false promises of safety. Many of the Bosniak men and boys saw their counterparts slaughtered en masse and were forced to wade through the pungent odour of their corpses stiffening under the blazing July heat.
Since 2005, Bosnians and people from around the world have been embarking on the three-day, 100-kilometre (62-mile) walk from Nezuk to the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Potocari, where newly identified victims are still laid to rest each year.
Dizdarevic, a Bosnian war refugee who fled to Germany in 1992, has been returning to take part in the march for the last four years and organising groups of nationals from other countries to join him.
While Dizdarevic, who is Bosniak, was not personally affected by the Srebrenica genocide, some of his family members were killed during Bosnia's three-year war from 1992 to 1995.
'My intention is to show respect for those who were killed in the genocide,' he explained. The marchers walked along rolling green hills and stony slopes [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera] The marchers walked along rolling green hills and stony slopes [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera]
The first day of the march this year, July 8, was unbearably hot, the sun beating down on the nearly 7,000 people beginning their days-long journey.
Spectators lined the march's path, stepping out into their front yards to offer quiet acts of solidarity – holding signs commemorating the genocide, handing out food, and passing bottles of water to the participants.
People wore coordinated outfits, many featuring slogans in remembrance of the genocide.
Dizdarevic's group of 40 included Bosniaks, Germans, Turks, Americans and a Dutch nurse who had first come to Srebrenica during the war with Doctors Without Borders. Dizdarevic, centre, and his group during the march [Courtesy of Sejfudin Dizdarevic]
As a veteran of the march, Dizdarevic advised his group to begin physically training as early as February, but he struggled to prepare them emotionally.
'When you talk to some people who survived genocide and they tell you your story ... there is no way to prepare for that,' he explained.
The scars of his country's past still resonate deeply with Dizdarevic, and he feels a duty to raise awareness about it. It's what drives him to organise others to take part.
On that first day, Dizdarevic heard a swirl of languages being spoken around him, which underscored just how far people had come to show their solidarity.
'It's very important to me that the people will learn the lessons of this genocide because if we don't draw the right lessons from this genocide, [the victims] were killed in vain,' he said.
As the day stretched into late afternoon, and the marchers continued across rolling green hills and stony slopes, the sweltering heat suddenly gave way to unexpected showers and powerful gusts of wind.
But Dizdarevic and his team were prepared for all weather conditions.
Eventually, night fell, and the group arrived in the village of Josanica, where they camped for their first overnight stop.
As is common among marchers, Dizdarevic arranged for his group to stay at the home of Srebrenica genocide survivors – some slept inside, while others pitched tents in a yard wet from the rain.
Their bellies full from food handed out by strangers and charities supporting the marchers, they had only one resolve: to complete the walk. Dizdarevic met two survivors who had hidden from Bosnian Serb forces in the forests [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera] Dizdarevic met two survivors who had hidden from Bosnian Serb forces in the forests [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera]
After a night of rain, the trail was slick with mud.
As the group traversed the mountain of Udrc in the Dinaric Alps, Dizdarevic explained, through shallow breaths, that the muddy conditions were slowing them down.
It was there, on the mountain, that he met two survivors of the genocide - men who had hidden in the forests from Bosnian Serb forces in the summer of 1995.
Hasan Hasanovic and Mevludin Hrnjic, both young men at the time, spent 80 days in hiding.
Hasanovic was just 19 and lost his father and twin brother in the killings. Years later, they were found in mass graves.
Hrnjic, then 24, lost his father and four of his brothers. He was the only male in his family to emerge from the woods to safety and to his mother. He later told his story in a book he authored, Witness to the Srebrenica Genocide.
'That was a very emotional moment for me,' Dizdarevic said, about walking with the two survivors where they had run for their lives three decades earlier.
As they walked together, he tried to put himself in their shoes, but Dizdarevic was sure it was just a glimpse of the hardships they went through.
'Look, we have all [the] logistical support. There are people from the Red Cross helping us to get up the mountain [with ropes],' he said.
It's already 'very, very hard', without having to worry about being killed, or having no food or shelter, he added.
The marchers walked mostly in silence, their heads bowed.
Then, Dizdarevic encountered his most difficult moment of the day: walking through the so-called 'death valley' in Kamenica, where smaller mass graves had been found along the Drina River basin.
'You cannot comprehend how massive this was and what destruction [it caused] not only for the people killed, but also for their families,' he reflected.
The gravesites there were found near the homes of Bosniaks, in their yards or in nearby meadows. Now, memorial plaques honour the Srebrenica victims at several of the sepulchres.
At the end of the second day, Dizdarevic and his group once again camped at a genocide survivor's home, this time in the village of Pubode. People pray among the gravestones of Srebrenica victims [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera] People pray among the gravestones of Srebrenica victims [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera]
​​On the third and final day, Dizdarevic and most of those around him could not contain their emotions as they reached Potocari, the site of the memorial to Srebrenica victims.
In the grassy valley dotted with row upon row of white marble tombstones, are the remnants of the gray slab concrete buildings where the UN Dutch battalion had been stationed to protect Bosniaks during the war.
But in July 1995, the battalion was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces, leading to the bloodshed that ensued.
Reaching the site where thousands were brutally killed brought 'overwhelming sadness' to Dizdarevic.
'It was very emotional,' he said.
But Dizdarevic was also awash with relief – not only from the physical toll of the march being over, but also from the emotional weight of having walked in the footsteps of victims who never made it to safety.
'It was very important for every one of us to finish this march,' he said.
'This remembrance should lead to a prevention of potential future genocide.'
As he and his companions set up one final camp in Potocari, before the memorial event there the next day on the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, Dizdarevic pondered what justice for its victims looks like.
'The search for justice ... is a very difficult process ... Even more difficult is that the Serbian society ... [is] very in favour of this genocide,' he said.
'I am afraid that Serbian society – they did not undergo this catharsis [of] saying, 'Yes, we did this and we are guilty, sorry.' [On the] contrary, they are very proud of it ... or they deny it.'
In the years since, the International Court of Justice and courts in the Balkans have sentenced almost 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials collectively to more than 700 years in prison for the genocide.
But many of the accused remain unpunished, and genocide denial is rampant, especially among political leaders in Serbia and the Serb-majority entity of Republika Srpska.
Milorad Dodik, the entity's current leader, whose image appears on billboards flashing the three-finger salute, a symbol of Serb nationalism, has dismissed the Srebrenica genocide as a 'fabricated myth'. The group arrived in Potocari a day before the 30th anniversary event [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera]
Still, Dizdarevic has held on to hope, a feeling renewed during the march as he watched countless young people take part, many of them born after the Bosnian war.
'What is, for me, very important, [is] that the young men and women who participate in this march understand ... they should play an active role in the prevention of future genocide by creating a positive environment in their societies,' he said.
On July 11, the day after the march ended, Dizdarevic and his group joined thousands in Potocari to mark the sombre anniversary, where the remains of seven newly identified victims were laid to rest.
There, they stood in solemn silence as the coffins were lowered into freshly dug graves, soon to be marked with new marble headstones, joining the more than 6,000 others already laid to rest.
Reporting for this article was made possible by the NGO Islamic Relief. A woman sits next to the gravestone of a relative at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Potocari [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera] A woman sits next to the gravestone of a relative at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Potocari [Urooba Jamal/Al Jazeera]