As many as 29 babies disappeared before their first birthday during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), while the search for 373 minors is still ongoing. For those working to find the missing, the most challenging aspect is meeting with parents who, even three decades after the war, refuse to give up and bury fragments of their children, while information about potential mass graves diminishes, along with living witnesses.
Judgments from the Hague Tribunal established that more than 7.000 men and boys were killed in the Srebrenica area during July 1995, with the bodies of some found in several mass graves. Among them, 445 children and minors have been exhumed so far, according to the Missing Persons Institute in BiH.
Around 150 children were exhumed from the areas of Donje Podrinje – Vlasenica, Zvornik, Srebrenica, Bratunac, and Sekovici, who were killed before the genocide.
About 1.000 people from this area are still missing, including children.
Munira Subasic, president of the Association “Mothers of Enclaves Srebrenica and Zepa”, says that a large number of children and minors are buried in Potocari, including baby Fatima Muhic.
“According to our records, two more babies are still missing… One baby was killed in front of us when we were supposed to board buses from Potocari. A soldier took her because she was crying and killed her. We heard that the other baby was killed after birth in Potocari. We wrote about this to the Court of BiH and the Hague Tribunal. The search for these children is still ongoing,” Subasic says.
Investigators are still searching for around 7.600 missing persons in BiH, including 373 children, but the search is hindered by a lack of quality information about the locations of graves, according to the Institute. Another challenge in the search for the missing is the shortage of investigators. Currently, 15 of them are doing this work.
“This is nowhere near enough for such a difficult and complex task, which is still being diligently performed three decades after the war. It takes a lot of knowledge and skills just to approach this job, and all circumstances further complicate the work of investigators in the field,” the Institute emphasizes.
The Centre for Research of War, War Crimes and Search for the Missing Civilians of Republika Srpska (RS), states that it is difficult to obtain information about missing persons today, especially from witnesses, given that almost 30 years have passed since the end of the war. They state that there were 31 children on the list of missing persons of RS. Of that number, 22 children have been identified, and the remains of nine of them are still being searched for.
“Most of the missing children were reported from the place of suffering in the village of Bravnice, municipality of Jajce, in the area of Javorska Kosa, and in the area of the village of Medari – Republic of Croatia,” the Center states, Detektor writes.
Photo: illustration
