prijava
SARAJEVO, July 8 (FENA) - On July 10, 1995, the Alliance of Refugees and Displaced Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina sent a letter to the then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and US President Bill Clinton, warning of the mass killing of Bosniak civilians in Srebrenica that would take place if the protected zone then falls into the hands of the Serb army.
“We had information from the field that crimes against civilians would occur, and that is why we appealed to Albright that the US and the international community prevent a human catastrophe in Srebrenica and the wider area around the UN protected zone,” said the then president of the Alliance of Refugees and displaced persons, now Union for Sustainable Return and Integration Mirhunisa Zukić.
Memorizing the events of the days when genocide was committed in Srebrenica, Zukić says that at that time they sent a letter from besieged Sarajevo to the State Department to protect the civilians in Srebrenica.
“We informed US President Clinton and Secretary Albright that we have reports from refugees coming to the free territories of Tuzla and Kladnje that around 23,000 refugees from 12 municipalities of Podrinje found refuge with children in the protected zone of Srebrenica, which was supposed to be a guarantee that they would survive, and not that they will be victims of genocide. Refugees came to Srebrenica from Žepa, Višegrad, Bratunac, Vlasenica, Goražde, Prača, Rudo, Rogatica, Zvornik, Han Pijesak. We begged that they be protected so that a human catastrophe would not occur in the hands of the Serb forces. At the same time, we informed the President of RBiH Alija Izetbegović and Prime Minister Haris Silajdžić about this,” says Zukić.
Given that the international community did nothing to prevent the genocide in Srebrenica, today's reminder of the letter from July 10, 1995, while Ukrainian civilians are dying, has a special message.
After the fall of Srebrenica, the Refugee Alliance continued to inform the international community about the non-arrival of refugees in the free territory.
“In Paris on December 14, 1995, when the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed, we informed the representatives of French intellectuals and Tadeusz Mazovjetski, the first UN envoy in war-torn BiH that about 7,000 men, women and children from Srebrenica disappeared and did not reach the territories under the control of the RBiH Army,” Zukić recalled her conversations at the meeting held at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris at that time.
Today appeals are sent from Ukraine for help and to stop the killing of civilians, the punishment of the perpetrators of war crimes is demanded.
“It is obvious, unfortunately, that the images of suffering from Srebrenica and Bosnia and Herzegovina are being repeated now in Ukraine,” concludes Zukić on the occasion of marking of the 27th anniversary of genocide in Srebrenica.
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