โ Scribed by George Hough
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
In May 2006, I made my fi rst trip to Bosnia. I was fortunate to be traveling with Pastor Mike Poage, an old Balkan hand who was returning to Bosnia for the fourth time. We had met through our network of mission volunteers within our regional church system, and quickly became good friends. We came to Bosnia to learn at fi rst hand how people had coped with the aftermath of the war. In particular, we came to visit the site of the infamous massacre of Bosnian Muslim men and boys that had occurred on July 11, 1995, at Srebrenica.
The fate of Bosnia-Herzegovina was the most tragic of the Balkan war. The mountains and valleys of this beautiful republic remain scarred with the charred and battered towns and villages from which at least half the population had fl ed, been expelled, or been killed. The United Nations (UN) Security Council passed Resolution 819, which had declared Srebrenica a United Nations "safe area" for civilians fl eeing from the war. Srebrenica was one of six designated "safe areas" in Bosnia. The term "safe area" quickly became a cruel misnomer. Safe areas became some of the most profoundly unsafe places in the world. Western governments had contributed no more than 7,000 of the estimated 34,000 troops needed to implement the safe area policy.
Srebrenica itself, a town where 8,000 people had lived before the war, had swelled to some 40,000 refugees who had fl ed the Serbian Army from elsewhere in eastern Bosnia. After three years of being trapped by the Serb siege, and of surviving on meager supplies of UN aid, most refugees were anxious to fi nd safety elsewhere. Left virtually on their own, Srebrenica's defenders refused to surrender. After days of probing, on July 6, the Serb shelling of Srebrenica began in earnest. The outgunned Muslim fi ghters could not mount a serious defense. Neither could the 370 Dutch UN peacekeepers that were stationed there to defend the designated safe enclave. Within two days, the Serbs had overrun three UN observation posts and had taken 30 Dutch hostages. Panic ensued when the Serb army began their advance into the town center. No one knew where to go or what to do as all resistance collapsed. Women and children, and mostly elderly men, all walked towards the main UN base at Potocari, located a few kilometers from the town center. The nearest Bosnian government-held territory was 70 kilometers away, and all roads for escape were patrolled by the Serbian Army.
About 15,000 people, mostly men and boys, took to the surrounding forests rather than trust the UN to protect them. They fi rst had to cross a minefi eld
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