In Turkish ‘bal’ means honey, and the story goes that when the Ottomans first arrived in the Balkans, they saw the lush vegetation and rich soil and recognised the area as a land of honey.

However, when they discovered how hard they would have to fight for their territory, they acknowledged the second syllable in the region’s name; in Turkish ‘kan’ means blood.

Little did they know that in times to come, countless wars would be fought, particularly between the Ottomans and the Serbs to retain this precious land, that name acquiring a deeper and darker significance, one that would haunt its inhabitants for centuries to come, and perhaps until the end of time.

Seeds of hate and the fall of Srebrenica

Although many different ethnic and religious groups had lived together for 40 years under Yugoslavia’s repressive communist government, this changed when the country began to collapse during the fall of communism in the early 1990s.

The provinces of Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, and war quickly followed between Serbia and these breakaway republics. Ethnic tensions that had long simmered under Yugoslav unity were brought violently to the surface, as neighbour turned on neighbour and friend became foe.

When Bosnia attempted to secede, Serbia — led by Slobodan Milosevic’s regime — invaded, claiming it was acting to “free” Serbian Orthodox Christians in Bosnia as part of a plan to create a Greater Serbia.

By 1992, the region would be ravaged by the seeds of hate. A year later, the United Nations (UN) Security Council declared that Sarajevo, Goradze, Srebrenica, and other Muslim enclaves were to be safe areas, protected by a contingent of UN peacekeepers. 

From 1993 to 1995, peacekeeping troops—first from Canada, then the Netherlands—were stationed in Srebrenica with a mandate to safeguard the town. As part of the United Nations’ approach, Bosnian Muslim forces were required to surrender their heavy weaponry. In return for protection guarantees, the area was declared a demilitarised zone, with UN forces establishing checkpoints around the enclave.

But despite their presence, in July 1995, Serb soldiers committed the largest massacre in Europe since World War II. 

Ethnic Serb forces, under the direction of Radovan Karadzic, President and Supreme Commander of the armed forces of the self-proclaimed entity Republika Srpska, were instructed to “ethnically cleanse” Bosnian territory by systematically removing all Bosnian Muslims, or Bosniaks, from Srebrenica.

Over 8,000 ‘battle-age’ Bosnian Muslim men and boys aged between 12-77 were slaughtered. These are conservative estimates, and many suggest a death toll of Bosnian War closer to 100,000. In addition, up to 30,000 Bosnian Muslim women, children, and elderly persons were forcibly transferred from the enclave.

Many were driven into concentration camps, where women and girls were systematically gang-raped and other civilians were tortured, starved, and murdered.

The so-called safe area of Srebrenica fell without a single shot fired by the UN.

When Serb forces launched a major offensive to take the town on July 6, Dutch peacekeepers repeatedly requested NATO air strikes to halt the advance. However, UN commanders rejected these requests. It was only on July 11 that approval for bombing was finally granted, but by then, it was too late.

That afternoon, the enclave fell to Serb forces. 

The Bosniaks were not only massacred, but those who were responsible for protecting them had watched it happen; some would argue they even allowed the genocide to take place.

In 2017, an appeals court in The Hague ruled that Dutch soldiers acting as UN peacekeepers were partly liable for the deaths of about 300 Muslim men massacred near Srebrenica.

The ruling upheld a decision three years earlier that Dutch forces should have known that the men seeking refuge at their base would be murdered by Bosnian Serb troops if they were turned away.

A peace agreement was eventually reached in 1995. Under the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina – commonly known as the Dayton Agreement – Bosnia and Herzegovina was established as a single state comprising two principal political entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, home predominantly to Bosniaks and Croats, and Republika Srpska, home predominantly to Bosnian Serbs. 

The haunting search for closure

Thirty years on, the wounds of genocide are still raw. Many have never been able to locate, let alone bury, their loved ones due to the way perpetrators disposed of bodies in mass graves. 

Several months after the Srebrenica massacre, then US Ambassador, Madeline Albright released a statement alluding to the US being aware of the mass gravesites the Bosnian Serb Army had erected from satellite photos the US had taken. 

Again, the silent complicity of those very States whom the Bosniaks considered the stalwarts of justice made the pain even harder to bear.

To hide the remains, a division of the Bosnian Serb Army issued an organised effort to dig up primary mass graves using heavy equipment. This ‘reburial’ was carried out at night, with remains moved to secondary or even tertiary sites. 

As a result, some victims’ remains are recovered over many years, across multiple gravesites, sometimes 50 kilometres apart. 

The International Commission of Missing Persons (ICMP) continues its painstaking work, taking blood samples from families of the missing to match DNA from bone fragments and identify the thousands of Bosniak bodies recovered. The process is ongoing, and as the search for bones continues, so does the unending cycle of grief. 

It is said that there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. For some women in Bosnia, the stages are on loop.

Every time a woman thinks she has buried the remains of her husband or her son, another piece resurfaces, and she must relive the anguish all over again. The lack of closure compounds the trauma. Newly identified Srebrenica massacre victims are reburied every July 11 at a vast and ever-expanding memorial cemetery outside the eastern town.

Justice delay, justice denied?

For the Bosniaks, the little justice that was delivered came too little, too late. 

In December 1995, over 60,000 American and NATO soldiers arrived in Bosnia to enforce the Dayton Peace Accords.

Hopes rose among Bosnian Muslims that General Mladic and Karadzic, the civilian leader of the Serb forces, would be arrested and sent to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to stand trial.

But despite their presence, US and NATO troops made no major effort to arrest Karadzic and Mladic, known as the butcher of Bosnia. After remaining in Bosnia for several years, both men crossed into Serbia and went into hiding. For years, they lived there with the support of local ultra-nationalists and protection from some government officials.

It wasn’t until 2009 that Serbian government security forces finally arrested Karadzic and sent him to The Hague after years of diplomatic and economic pressure from the European Union. In 2011, General Mladic was arrested and handed over as well.

The ICTY, established in The Hague to prosecute key figures involved in the genocide that took place during the 1990s Balkan conflicts, indicted over 161 individuals, primarily high-ranking Serb commanders and political leaders.

Ninety-two were convicted by the ICTY or its successor, the International Residual Mechanisms for Criminal Tribunals. Among those successfully prosecuted were Mladic and Karadzic. However, key figures such as Slobodan Milosevic died before the trial concluded. 

Justice delayed was justice denied. 

Never again?

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. Yet the term anniversary suggests an event in the past; for survivors, trauma repeats daily as they continue searching for remains of loved ones.

At the same time, the massacre is still being denied and distorted by certain groups, including political leaders from the Serbian nationalist parties, making closure elusive. 

For survivors, their greatest desire is to ensure this happens ‘never again’; a phrase coined following the Holocaust.

Remembering Srebrenica, a UK-based charity, has arranged several events where survivors share their stories in the hope of inspiring others to become ambassadors against hate.

At the same time, they share the secondary trauma of witnessing the present-day genocide in Gaza and the horror that the world is watching again, with no end in sight.

As they recount their experience from thirty years ago, the pain is amplified by the fact that the same genocidal acts are being carried out in Gaza as they speak; the mass killings, the dehumanisation, the weaponisation of food, the systematic plan to exterminate a whole ethnic group.. They know that if and when it comes to an end, it will be too late. 

Taking lessons from history, one begins to question, where does the responsibility lie, with the perpetrators, the nation states, the bystanders, or equally, all three? And how do we ensure we stand by the commitment of ‘never again’?