The whole world is disgusted by murder of innocent civilians in Aleppo, including a large number of children. Many people are identifying the fate of this Syrian city with the genocide that happened in Srebrenica. One of those who survived Srebrenica massacre is Nedzad Avdic, who fled from his hometown as a teenager.
“I remember the torture, and the smell of blood. I didn’t know it yet, but I was living through the worst genocide in Europe since the second world war. And afterwards, I remember the promises of “never again”.
Those promises are being broken, hour after hour, day after day, in the deepening horror of east Aleppo. More than 500,000 people have died since war began in 2011. Imagine it. Years of cluster bombs, rockets and toxic gas raining down, funeral after funeral, death after death, while the world looks on and watches your country and your people being destroyed,” wrote Avdic for the Guardian.
Avdic called Aleppo the city of death in his text, and he wonders if this what is happening is sign that hope died.
“I hope not, as I have been there, staring death in the face, desperately alone. On a night in mid-July 1995, Serbian soldiers took us to the field where we were to be executed. They stripped us and tied our hands behind our backs. Lined up, five by five, rows and rows of dead bodies before my eyes. I was shot in my stomach, right arm and left foot and felt an incredible pain. When the butchers left, I realised I was not dead and managed to escape with another man. For days we kept running, hiding in the woods and sleeping in graveyards until we eventually reached the safety of Bosnian-controlled territory. I wondered then how the world could let this happen,” wrote Nedzad.
The European Parliament condemned the genocide in Srebrenica in 2005 and promised that nothing similar will never happen again. Nedzad stated that it gave him hope that everything that people of Srebrenica went through was not in vain and that the world has learned something from the horrors of the past. He believed that the international community will protect civilians in case of conflict in the future.
“I have faith in humanity. In people all over the world. I know most of them would help the people of Aleppo if they could. But they can’t do it alone. Only our leaders can stop the slaughter of civilians in Aleppo and across Syria. Their failure to do so is a betrayal not only of the people of Aleppo and Syria, but of the survivors and victims of all the genocides we said we’d learned from. I’ve looked down the barrel of the gun, and know that humanity can’t afford this. Take it from a genocide survivor – more than Aleppo is at stake,” stated Avdic.
(Source: klix.ba/theguardian.com)
