In countless painful memories of Srebrenica, it is impossible not to remember the moment caught on camera, the moment that the world has seen, when on July 11, 1995 in Potočari the war criminal Ratko Mladić approached children and women and, promising them freedom, caressed the eight-year-old Izudin Alić from Prohići near Srebrenica on the head and gave him a chocolate.
At the same time, he took the lives of his father Šahzet and uncle Nurija.
“That was the first chocolate I tasted in my eight-year long life. We were starving, and we, the children, did not know who the man who was giving candies to us is. I felt happy because of the gift and ate the chocolate in two bites. While I was eating, my grandma Hana was telling me to throw it away. Later she told me that she was afraid that the chocolate might be poisoned because, as she said, that evil man can do anything,” Alić remembers.
As it is known, the General of the Army of Republika Srpska did not keep his promise. Women and children were deported to the free territory, and men were separated in Potočari and captured in the woods, tortured, brutally killed and buried in countless mass graves in Podrinje. Alić says he remembers the war faintly, but he remembers the hunger and separation from his father and uncle, who went into the woods with many other men.
“Upon arriving at the free territory with my mother Fatima, grandma Hana, grandpa Šahin and brothers Isad and Nurija, we settled in the tent camp Dubrave, and after that in the refugee center near Banovići. While waiting for our father to come, we had a difficult life as refugees. Brother and I were children, mother was old and feeble, so we could not do anything. We somehow finished elementary school. When we found out that father was exhumed and identified and when he was buried in Potočari, we decided to come back to our village and we did not regret that decision,” Izudin Alić says.
After returning to the native village Prohići with his mother and brothers eleven years ago, they started dealing with agriculture and cattle breeding and it could be said that today Izudin is a successful farmer. They live in a reconstructed house. They have 110 sheep and in their free time they do different jobs for daily wage.
Izudin did not have enough money to go to his father’s funeral in Potočari years ago.
“I did not regret coming back. I work a lot on my farm, but we live well. It was very difficult in the beginning. There were days when we did not have any money in the house. That is why I could not go to my father’s funeral to Potočari, 40 kilometers away. Now I go regularly and pray for my father, uncle and all other victims,” Alić says.
The moment when Mladić gives a chocolate to Izudin can be seen after the second minute of this video.
(Source: avaz.ba/photo: avaz.ba)
