Samira Halilovic does not remember her parents and sister. She was only 11 months old in May 1992 when her mother and seven-year-old sister were killed in the Bratunac village of Joseva, and she survived even though it was shot at her baby bed. After nearly three decades of searching for their remains, Samira will bury them on May 12th in the Veljaci cemetery in Bratunac, in the hope that one day her father will also be found.
Today, Samira has no memories of her mother Safija, who was 31 years old when she was killed, and her seven-year-old sister Amira Parangalija, because she was 11 months old when they were killed in 1992.
“They also shot me, I was in my baby bed. They shot, but they saw that I was alive. They thought, ‘Come on, she’ll suffocate, she won’t stay alive either,'” says Samira.
She says that today she has no memories of her mother and sister, she only has pictures of the clothes from the exhumation. What she learned from others was that the mother was a good person. They told her that her sister had curly blond hair.
Samira is still searching for her father’s remains. Her four-year-old brother was captured and taken to a camp, which had consequences for his health.
Suhra Sinanovic, president of the Association “Women of Podrinje” Bratunac, says that this year the 17th collective funeral is being held in Veljaci in Bratunac, where 306 people have been buried so far.
Last year, it was written about a funeral at which the youngest victim was nine-year-old Salmir Hodzic, who was buried next to his mother. His remains were not complete.
Emza Fazlic, spokesperson for the Institute for Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), states that a total of 603 people have disappeared in the Bratunac area, while the search for around 200 victims is still ongoing. One of the largest groups that is still being searched for was imprisoned in the “Sase” Mine, and in 1992, all traces of these people were lost.
She announces that the Institute will soon be working in two more locations precisely in search of these groups, in the hope that the information they have will prove to be correct. According to her, they had previous unsuccessful attempts because “information about the precise locations where the bodies are located is persistently hidden.”
Radovan Karadzic, Momcilo Krajisnik, Biljana Plavsic, and Miroslav Deronjic were convicted before the Hague Tribunal for the crimes committed in the Bratunac area, Detektor reports.
E.Dz.
