NUMBER OF VICTIMS STILL UNKNOWN

Life of imprisoned Muslims in Srebrenica dubious

AIM, Belgrade, July 21, 1995

Not even the carefully guarded border between Serbia and Bosnia managed to prevent the news about killing of hundreds, even thousands of war prisoners from Srebrenica from breaking through. Inhabitants of Bratunac and the surrounding villages controlled by Bosnian Serbs are crossing the bridges on the Drina, carrying the news about violent death of a large number of men from the Eastern-Bosnian enclave which was conquered by forces loyal to the leadership in Pale ten days ago.

"They were killing them quickly, in a great hurry", a young woman whose brother-in-law is a soldier in the army of Bosnian Serbs, says. "Only on Monday (July 17) 1600 Muslims were executed. The soldiers brag that about four thousand were killed".

Other sources, however, speak about the final figure of about two thousand. All agree about two things: the place and the manner of execution. According to statements of a few inhabitants who are not mutually connected, prisoners were executed at two locations. One of them was the playing field in Bratunac, and the other hangars behind the school building in the same town. Most of them met their doom in the playing field, while only men who were claimed to be war criminals by the military and civilian authorities were taken to the hangars. According to allegations of the young woman from the beginning of the text, death by slaughter was reserved for them, while those at the stadium were shot. They were probably shot not by firing squads but by individuals.

UN representatives who visited Bratunac last Friday, heard individual shots which came from the direction of the town, but they were told that it was the soldiers celebrating victory. Occasional shots echoed through the town last Mondy and Tuesday too. The story of citizens of Bratunac that everybody in the region, both soldiers and civilians, were offered to shoot prisoners, if any of their relatives had been killed in the war and if they wanted revenge, also speaks in favour of the assumption about killing without a firing squad. A certain number of people who had lost their closest relatives refused the offer: "The fact that somebody's parents will suffer like I suffered will not bring my child back to me", a man whose son was killed in 1992 said. There were those who accepted the offer, though, and some of them killed ten or more people in the course of last week.

The stadium in Bratunac, a playing field actually, was mentioned in some of the reports of international organizations as the possible detention centre, but so far authorities of Bosnian Serbs did not wish to reveal where the prisoners were, nor did they permit access to humanitarian organizations. Few journalists who did get permits to go to Pale after the Serbs had conquered Srebrenica were explicitly told that they could take the road via Visegrad only, and it is quite impossible to get to the region of Srebrenica and Bratunac by this road.

A Pale television crew managed to make a shot of the prisoners at the stadium, but the film was confiscated by military authorities. No violence against the confined men could be seen on the film. Experts for problems of prisoners of war, though, claim that such evidence is usually eliminated if there is an intention to get rid of the prisoners, in order to make any identification impossible.

"Faces can be recognized on snapshots. Later, someone will ask, that man was last seen there, as your prisoner. Tell us what happened to him", an international expert for humanitarian issues explained.

The only other available snapshot of men from Srebrenica which also ended up in the hands of the army of Bosnian Serbs, is the one publicized in a special program about the fall of this town which was telecast by Independent Television Studio B last Saturday. In a short take, moving upwards and then "zooming", the camera showed a terrace in Srebrenica on which about fifteen men were sitting with their hands on the back of their heads, carefully watched by two Serb soldiers.

Apart from Studio B and the Bosnian Serbs, there are few "outsiders" who had the opportunity to see the men from Srebrenica. Mitar Radovanovic, a driver of a firm from Ljubovija, "Azbukovica", who took juice, milk and liver paste on Wednesday before last to the base of the UNPROFOR Dutch batallion, several kilometres from Srebrenica, for thousands of civilians who found refuge there, claims that during one hour he spent among them, he did not see a single man eligible to be a soldier. "I noticed a few old men, but I did not see a single men below the age of 70", Mr Radovanovic says.

There are indications that the prisoners were killed even before they were transported to Bratunac. Representatives of an international organization said that they had seen trucks with corpses going away from the vicinity of Potocar in a convoy with excavators for digging soil. Refugees from Srebrenica who have arrived to Tuzla said that many people were shot in Potocari on Wednesday before last at noon and on Thursday. The film made by Studio B shows several corpses in a ditch for draining water, and in a moving take shot at a distance of about twenty meters lasting a couple of seconds, a heap was seen which could consist of a couple of tens of dumped bodies in front of a door to a warehouse or a large garage. The take was "covered" by the voice of a reporter who said that "many Muslim soldiers were killed".

In Srebrenica itself, however, there are no dead bodies now. Jela Bacakovic, a Serb who had left the town as soon as the war began, visited it again on Tuesday before last, and saw nobody, either living or dead. "Srebrenica is a ghost town", Mrs Bacakovic says. "Everything is empty, so that traces of a stay of an enormous number of people look even ghastlier. In my house, each room is provisionally divided into three premises each of them accomodating a family. All the houses are sooty, without any woodwork - doors, windows, frames, everything was, I presume used as firewood."

It is impossible to determine the exact figure of the victims, and it is uncertain whether it will ever be possible. In the first place, the assessments about the number of inhabitants in Srebrenica before it was taken differ. The UNHCR claims that there were 44 thousand, but some other internationl organizations have assessed the population at 42 thousand. The refugees were taken on several occasions away from the town after it had fallen and sent to different places, mostly to Tuzla and Kladanj, so that it is difficult to figure out the number of disappeared persons either. Last Saturday, Emma Bonino, Commissioner for humanitarian issues of the European Union, expressed concern about 15 thousand disappeared persons, which was the assessment of her organization based on data on site. In the meantime, the Mayor of Zepa informed about six to eight thousand soldiers who have managed to get through to this enclave from Srebrenica. This lowered the figure of those whose destiny is dubious to seven or nine thousand.

The destiny of wounded Muslim soldiers who were taken prisoner by the Bosnian Serbs is also uncertain. A hundred and five of them were transported to the Outdoor Patient Clinic in Bratunac. The leadership from Pale agreed to enable their evacuation to the hospital in Tuzla by mediation of the Interntional Red Cross. When the team of the Red Cross from Geneva arrived in Bratunac, however, they were told that 23 wounded soldiers would not be released. There are indications that since Tuesday none of them are in Bratunac any more, and noone can imagine what has happened to them, while the others were transported to Tuzla. In Bratunac Outdoor Patient Clinic, noone wished to give any information. "It is very interesting that you call on the phone and expect us to say anything of the kind", is the only thing a representative of the clinic was ready to declare.

After Zepa surrendered, chances that the traces of the lost men from Srebrenica will ever be found are even less. The Bosnian Serbs allowed evacuation only of women and children from Zepa, and decided to keep men as prisoners of war which, as they said, they wished to exchange. Since there is an unknown number of those who have just come from Srebrenica, chances that they will ever be traced after this second imprisonment are further diminished. But chances have greatly increased that they will join the only army in Bosnia which is constantly growing - the army of those who have disappeared.

Dragan Cicic