Zuhra and Salih Velic arrived from the United States (U.S.) this year as well to visit the graves of her three and one of his brothers who were killed in the genocide, but also to pay their respects to all the victims of Srebrenica. Despite the tragedy, they are full of love and optimism as they say that, thanks to the convoy, she and her three children escaped the horrors of July, and her husband believes that his mother’s prayer brought him safely to Nezuk. He was among the first to survive the “Death March”.
Salih Velic remained in Srebrenica until July 11th, 1995, alone, without a family about whom he knew nothing. He tried, he says, to defend those who could not leave it. He was among the first to decide to go through the forest.
The trip lasted a total of five days, and on July 16th, he left the safe territory, among the first survivors of the “Death March”.
The war before the genocide
At the beginning of the war circumstances in 1992, the Velic’s lived with their two sons in the family house at the very top of Cerska, in the hamlet of Velici. Hardworking even on their land, they kept cattle and did not starve until autumn, when Cerska was attacked.
Thinking that they were safer in the village below Cerska, he left his family and went with his neighbors to guard the battle line above, thinking that this would protect them.
Due to the frequent attacks on Cerska and surrounding towns, Salih moved his wife and two children, nine months pregnant, to Potocari.
Recalling that period, his wife Zuhra says that he left her in Potocari with two twin sons and a third baby on the way, which she would give birth to in poor conditions on March 17th.
Children suffocated in the convoy
Zuhra left Potocari on March 30th with her daughter-in-law and three small children. Her daughter-in-law took her twins because she could not take care of them all, and she was carrying a baby that was not even 15 days old.
“The woman in the convoy kept her daughter outside the convoy, until they reached the safe territory, that’s how crowded it was,” recounts Salih, calming Zuhra with a look, who was upset because of the memory of that event.
“One mother, they lived here, the house below us… she carried the child dead in her arms, suffocated because of the crowd in the convoy, she didn’t even notice,” she recalls, while her husband added that, unfortunately, two children suffocated in that convoy, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
