(Main image ©FarahJamaluddin)
The United Nations and the international courts legally recognised the 1995 Srebrenica massacre as Genocide, with the UN officially describing the atrocity as “the worst on European soil since the Second World War”.
On 11 July 1995, and the days that followed, Bosnian Serb forces, led by General Ratko Mladić, stormed the UN-protected ‘safe zone’ of Srebrenica and began a planned and organised campaign of mass execution and ethnic cleansing. More than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were separated from their families and were systematically executed and then buried in mass graves in an attempt to conceal the truth. Bosniak Muslim women and children were forcibly removed from the region, and many were subjected to violence and sexual abuse.
I was 14 years old when the Srebrenica Genocide took place, and back then the news that we watched was a packaged segment at 9pm, carefully constructed to show us what the channel wanted us to see. I have a memory of asking my mum what was going on, and why truck-loads of women, wearing headscarves, were crying and being separated from the men? My mum did what most mums would – she shielded me from the ugly truth.
Years later, when I would go on to study what had actually happened, to say that I was utterly stunned and devastated is an understatement. How had this happened in Europe and why didn’t anybody do anything to stop it? These are questions we often hear being asked and as a Muslim woman, I cannot help but reflect on whether this atrocity would have happened had the victims not been Muslim. The events that unfolded during the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 and particularly in Srebrenica are still shocking to me to this day.
11th July this year marks the 31st anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide. Survivors and families of victims visit the memorial site every year in Potočari, (a village approximately 5 kilometres from the town of Srebrenica) to pay tribute to those that were executed in cold blood or to lay loved ones to rest, as still more bones are being found from painstaking exhumations of primary, secondary and even tertiary mass graves. Identifying victims has been a long and complex process, requiring detailed DNA analysis.
My visit to Srebrenica last year to commemorate the 30-year anniversary of the Genocide was my second visit to the country, yet felt more poignant than my first visit back in 2016. We have now witnessed a ‘live-streamed’ Genocide in Gaza for more than 1,000 days. No one can now ever say that they didn’t know what was happening. The phrase “never again” that we heard after the Srebrenica Genocide has never felt hollower.
I wanted to speak to survivors, the Mothers of Srebrenica, the old and the young to ask them what they had experienced and whether Gaza has brought back the harrowing memories that they were trying to heal.
These video interviews are a brief snapshot of the conversations I had. A lot of those that I spoke with, understandably did not want to be filmed, but nonetheless shared their tragic stories of being raped by Serbian soldiers who had once been their neighbours. Some spoke of living under siege in Sarajevo, enduring extreme hardships, while others staved off hunger by eating tissue paper soaked in water. One man spoke of his crippling survivor’s guilt as he had managed to escape and survive the executions in Srebrenica while most of his family had been killed. He was just a young teenage boy at the time, the same age as me. Some of these testimonies may never be documented but they are very much real. We must continue to bear witness and share these stories to remind ourselves where dehumanisation and hatred can lead.
As for Gaza, our tolerance level to death and destruction seems to have increased. We have become desensitised to the graphic images, and hearing that four children have been killed in a day as opposed to 100 is somehow, disturbingly “manageable”. We must continue to keep our eyes on what’s happening in Gaza and also the West Bank, where amongst other things, the sickening treatment of hostages in Israeli prisons is beyond comprehension. We must keep the pressure on those in power and continue to mobilise to show our support and solidarity with the Palestinian people – for the Palestinian people themselves, and as a way to honour and pay tribute to the lives lost to the Srebrenica Genocide.
‘Chewing the fat” with Yusri Salameh, Travnik
During my visit, I also had the opportunity to meet with a Palestinian business owner and chef, Yusri Salameh, who has become a well-known personality in the town of Travnik (approximately 95km from the capital Sarajevo) by keeping Palestinian culture and heritage in the spotlight with his scrumptious cooking. Customers have flocked from throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina and far beyond, to show their support. I spoke with him about the Genocide in Gaza, the love between the people of Bosnia and Palestine, and his thoughts on the future. His unapologetic opinions and determination to live with dignity reveal a passion not just for cooking, but for life itself.
July 2026 update: Sadly, for personal reasons, Yusri has had to close the restaurant for the time being. Hopefully this is temporary and Yusri can continue to share his Palestinian heritage with visitors and locals alike.
— Guest post – writing and filming by Farah Jamaluddin —
