Burying a brother in hostile territory: this is how a genocide is commemorated

Special envoy to SrebrenicaHaving to step through mud is no reason to stop wearing new shoes when burying a brother. Even if it's thirty years late. Under a sun that seems to defy the solemnity of the ceremony, Mensur Mujicic throws the first handful of earth where the Amir will be buried. The men gathered around the grave finish burying the wooden planks that protect the coffin. With each shovelful, a small wound closes. Then, the comfort of a singing voice. The air vibrates to the rhythm ofAllahu Akbar and an arm surrounds Mujicic's shoulder.

Mujicic had known for four years that his brother was dead. His remains had been found in a mass grave more than 100 kilometers from where he had been murdered, in Srebrenica, on July 11, 1995. But he had chosen not to tell his mother. She was already very old, and they didn't know how she would take the news. When she died in February, they decided that now was the time to say goodbye.

"Say he was the first engineer in the history of Sterda," Mujicic tells his son Ibrahim, who translates for this newspaper. "They always kill the educated people first," he laments. Amir left his hometown in 1992 when the Bosnian war broke out and took refuge in Srebrenica, a Muslim enclave in the middle of Bosnian Serb territory, where he worked for a time as an English teacher. In July 1995, when Bosnian Serb troops led by General Ratko Mladic seized the UN-held base in the small, adjacent town of Potocari, he was killed along with 8,371 other people. Most were men who had been separated from women and children in front of the UN peacekeepers, bused away, and shot. The bodies were buried in mass graves and then moved several times. More than 1,000 are still waiting to be found underground.

At the Potocari memorial, the deceased are buried only on July 11th in commemoration of the massacre. The nearly 6,000 existing graves spread out over the grass like a field of white marble flowers. They are rooted to the ground with the force of a bullet and point upward with the characteristic spike of Muslim tombstones.

This year, seven families will bury the remains of children, grandchildren, and siblings. But many more have come to attend the annual ceremony and to visit the graves of their loved ones. They have come equipped for a tough day. They know this; most come every year: they bring caps, water, bags full of food, and a blanket to sit on the grass. This year, some have also brought Palestinian flags. To reach their grave, it is necessary to pass over the others.

When a group of young men step on her husband's house, Munereva protests by banging her crutch against the ground. Resting next to her are her two children: Nerim and Edi Gabeljic. They were 15 and 22 when they were murdered. Nerim was in high school, and Edi had started university. Both Munereva and her daughter, Medina, left Srebrenica after the war. The daughter went to the United States, but the mother stayed in Sarajevo. Once a month, they travel the 150 km between the two cities to come and pray with their children and husband. When she begins the prayer, her eyes are closed. She can't speak anymore.

Surviving the genocide

Amela and Adela Memic also lost their father and uncle in Srebrenica. They came accompanied by their daughters, like so many others. Dozens of children wander among the graves. Perhaps the war is far away, but they were raised praying to their dead during the bloodshed in the Balkans, as Bosnians on all sides have done over the past three decades. Adela and Amela's father was 35 when he was killed. He was younger than he is now.

There are other graves where there is no one. Perhaps there are no living relatives left. In some cases, the war wiped out entire families; in most, those who survived left Srebrenica. What had been a town of almost 40,000 inhabitants is now full of empty houses. It is now estimated that fewer than 4,000 remain. No one wants to live on the rubble of a genocide.

Genocide It's a word that still makes people uncomfortable today. It implies the moral collapse of a society and the failure of those who set themselves up as its arbiters. It also implies the failure of those who stood by and did nothing to stop it. Genocide It's hard to say, even when it's obvious and broadcast live. But even when there are images and when an international court has issued a ruling in these terms, there are those who find a way to cast doubt on it. Bosnian Serb Milorad Dodik, on a visit to Bratunac, the closest village to the Srebrenica memorial. the event. The heads of state of Turkey, Norway, Pakistan, and all the countries in the region except Serbia parade by in an official car. Bosnian Serb, staked to the side of the road, expressly for the occasion. It is the landscape of an unfinished reconciliation, based on mutual indifference.

At least 7,000 people have come on foot from Nezuk, on a 100-kilometer march retracing the route taken by the unarmed men fleeing Srebrenica before they were killed. The pilgrims walk the last stretch between cars and photographs. No one tears down the posters, and everyone respects the dead on the other side. Now it's the turn of the living to come to an understanding.

The return journey will be similar. Traffic jams make it impossible for even official cars to pass. Some officials take the opportunity to enjoy a moment of communion with the masses. Bosnian President Denis Becirovic takes photographs with citizens who ask him to. But he doesn't seem to be very eager to talk to journalists. He simply says, "Barcelona, very beautiful" in this newspaper.

For some, the return journey will be longer than for others. Medina Cehic came from Melbourne, Australia, with 22 other people. They are part of the Children and the Srebrenica Genocide Association, made up of relatives and friends of genocide victims, and they travel to Bosnia every year to attend the ceremony. She was barely two years old when the war broke out, and she was fortunate that her parents were granted asylum in Germany. She believes this saved their lives, and that's why she demands the universality of that right. "We work to raise awareness about the dangers of genocide. But seeing what's happening in Gaza, it seems like we haven't learned anything," she laments. This year is the first time the entire organization has participated in the march on foot. Her feet are covered in sores. But she decided to wear sandals anyway. The occasion deserves it.