What the Serbs wanted to Exit – & Srebrenica

One of the family is in Novi Sad at the mo, at the Exit Festival – I’ve been listening to the livestream.

At the same time there’s been a steady trickle of tweets reminding me of the commemoration later today of the Srebrenica genocide.  A friend from the East London Mosque is leading a delegation and will be taking part.

I’m told 613 men & boys whose bodies have been identified over the past year will be buried at Potocari later today.  Over 8,000 unarmed Bosniacs were taken up to the hills around Srebrenica (a UN designated safe area for Muslims) in July 1995 and shot by Serbian forces.  General Ratko Mladić, who was in command, is now on trial for genocide.  Bodies are still being recovered and identified.

Huge crowd at the Exit Festival 2011.

The Exit Festival was started in 2000 (100 days of it!) by three Serbian students under the slogan, “Exit out of ten years of madness”, a reference to the Milošević regime.  Milošević resigned later that year and spent his last years on trial for war crimes.  It’s great that the festival (now just 4 days) has become one of the best festivals-with-a-message in Europe.

Here are some more photos from my 2009 visit.

Hasan Hasanovic, who survived the killings (second from right), tells our group what happened during the hot summer of 1995.

Myself, a Srebrenica mother who lost all her male family members in the massacre and a friend from our group at Potocari, where the dead are buried.

A couple of young campaigners, one wearing an Exit t-shirt (which I didn’t recognise at the time).

Never again – the Srebrenica prayer inscribed in English at the Potocari cemetery.

The beautiful scenery in Bosnia-Hertzegovina – often similar to my own country, Scotland.  Much of the countryside cannot be used – it’s too expensive to clear all the land-mines.