Hurija Mahmutovic managed to survive the horrors of war and Srebrenica genocide, and on the photo, a soldier of the United Nations (UN) is helping her wounded two-year-old daughter that she was holding in her arms, and it reminds her of the most difficult period of her life, reported BIRN.
With the 11 months-old son in her arms and another four children, Hurija Mahmutovic was in Potocari on July 11, 1995. She remembers the fog and that shells were falling everywhere from the Serbian positions. At one point, someone told her that her two-year-old daughter Marizela was wounded.
In Potocari was then recorded photo of a mother holding a child covered in blood in her arms, and a UN soldier trying to help her. Photography went all over the world, and for Mahmutovic it represents the memory of the horrors of war and genocide that were committed in Srebrenica.
With the wounded girl in her arms, Mahmutovic went to the bus, which members of the Army of the RS (VRS) prepared after women and men were separated in Potocari. In the days after the fall of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, the VRS performed shooting of about 8,000 men and boys in different locations.
“While passing through Kravica, I saw many people killed,” said Mahmutovic, who was in the column of buses on their way to Kladanj, a place that was controlled by the Army of BiH (ARBiH).
Since she was afraid for her child, she went to the military base which was located in Dubrave near Tuzla. Help, as she said, was provided by members of UNPROFOR. The wounded child received drugs and started to recover.
Despite all horrors she went through, Mahmutovic managed to survive the year of 1993, as well as other years of war. Today she lives in the United States (US). Her husband recently passed away. Her daughter Marizela is married and lives in Las Vegas, but her mother says that she still feels some consequences of the horrors of the war.
Her oldest daughter lives in Switzerland, while Mirela, Merima, and Nermin live in New York.
(Source: fokus.ba)
