More than 4,000 people left Nezuk for Potočari, and in the coming days they will follow the route by which the people of Srebrenica tried to save their lives in July 1995 to reach the free territory of Tuzla or Kladanj. Many of them did not make it, and those who did, today live lives that are full of trauma because of what they went through.
The survivors of Srebrenica are again this year at the head of the Peace March column, which left Nezuk for Potočari this morning, to pay tribute to the thousands killed in the genocide in Srebrenica. This is a way to feel at least approximately what all those who fled from Srebrenica went through.
“I’m alive. We who survived are alive, but we are dead. I don’t know how to explain it to you, because we carry so much pain and burden. Here, you see here among our comrades children who did not remember their parents”, says Enver Musić.
Osman Salkić remembers that fateful July 1995. Although 28 years have passed, it is getting harder and harder for him every year, because the pictures keep coming back to him, which remind him of his loved ones who didn’t survive: “Every time I come across this road, I know where who died, where who remained, what should I have done so that someone would be alive today, could I have done it”.
The peace march is one of the ways that the truth about the genocide is transmitted from generation to generation and that this terrible crime is never challenged. The fact that every year there are more and more young people participating in the March is a sufficient indicator that we are aware of the importance of the culture of memory.
“We should not forget. It is especially important for us young people to remember and to never forget and to pass on to the next generations,” says Haris Džilić.
The route of the Peace March follows the same route as in 1995, and after arriving in Potocari on July 11, the participants will attend the burial of 30 identified victims of genocide, found in mass graves.
