Refugees Tell Horror Of Srebrenica
Thousands of stunned Muslim refugees streamed into this town in northern Bosnia on Thursday, telling of bodies left hanging from trees and littering the street following the Bosnian Serb conquest of the ostensibly safe haven of Srebrenica.
Busloads of refugees, many bringing no more than the clothes on their backs, continued to arrive late into the night. They camped under a full moon on mosquito-infested fields near the Tuzla airport, trying to come to grips with their sudden losses.
Dozens of refugees interviewed here told similar stories of atrocities. They had hidden fearfully in their homes Tuesday night, after Bosnian Serbs had entered the town of Srebrenica late Tuesday afternoon with virtually no resistance.
On Wednesday morning, these witnesses said, when Bosnian Serb soldiers routed them out to waiting buses for shipment to government-held territory, they saw “many men hanging,” in words repeatedly used, and many more men lying dead in the streets. There was no independent verification of their accounts.
The refugees said they had heard some shots during the night but that many of the men had apparently been stabbed to death.
“I saw men who seemed to have gone crazy, killing people with knives,” said Vahida Nukic, a 54-year-old woman. “We didn’t know what was happening.”
Some of the refugees also described rapes and abductions of women, notorious weapons of degradation in past Serbian episodes of “ethnic cleansing” by the Serbs.
Anger was high at Western powers, which many in the throng blamed for not protecting Srebrenica.
“This is Major’s work,” yelled one man on crutches, in a reference to British Prime Minister John Major. “It is Clinton’s work too. Clinton - always talking so nice and doing nothing.”
“They had better take a gun and kill us all,” one woman said. And waving her arms toward the masses of dazed people who made up the weeping, nearly hysterical crowd, she added: “Look at what you did for us, all you governments.”
U.N. troops in and around Tuzla are plainly overwhelmed by the sudden flood of refugees, who were living in a U.N.-declared “safe area” until Serb troops stormed past a contingent of peacekeepers and fell upon them this week.
Relief workers, local volunteers and U.N. soldiers distributed blankets and rubber mattresses to a few lucky refugees and gave scraps of food to some children, but most knew ate nothing on Thursday.
The vast crowd sat almost completely motionless and silent, as if in a collective state of shock. The only sounds heard were plaintive wails of babies and small children, broken occasionally by amplified announcements from local fire engines that passed by with rations of water.
U.N. officials said that more than 8,000 refugees had arrived in Tuzla by Thursday night, after they were dropped at the front lines by the Serbs and transported to Tuzla by the Bosnian government.
Relief workers said the refugees were all women and children, and no men were seen among those camped at the airport on Thursday night. Military-age men captured in the Srebrenica enclave were separated by the Serbs and sent to the town of Bratunac, where Bosnian Serb officers said they would be questioned for possible war crimes.
“I saw neighbors dead, and it made me crazy,” said Haka Nukic, a 67-year-old grandmother who was born in Srebrenica and has lived there all her life and is the mother of Vahida Nukic. “The first night the Serbs were in the town, we heard screaming in the streets until morning. They took women away and did bad things to them, and killed men the way you slaughter cattle.”
Mrs. Nukic said her 16-year-old grandson had been captured, and said she fears he may have been killed.
“At first the Serbs said we shouldn’t worry, that they wanted peace, that nothing would happen to us,” she said. “But later, when it got dark, they turned into wild animals. I don’t see how we will ever be able to go back there.”
The Serbian decision to remove all of Srebrenica’s more than 40,000 Muslims, most of whom had moved there after being forced from their homes in previous Serb campaigns, was the latest spasm of the “ethnic cleansing” that has been a tactic of Serb forces, and to a lesser extent, of their Croat enemies, since the Bosnian war began three years ago.
It is an article of faith among Bosnian Serbs that their self-proclaimed state, which no other nation recognizes, cannot survive while pockets of Muslims remain in its midst.
Bosnian Serbs are seeking to consolidate their control over eastern Bosnia by overrunning the Muslim “safe areas” established by the United Nations in 1993. After their success in Srebrenica, they have begun to turn their firepower on Zepa.
The commander of the Bosnian Serb army, Gen. Ratko Mladic, asserted in an interview published on Thursday that the enclaves had never been truly demilitarized, and that in fact they had been used as bases from which Muslims had launched “terrorist actions.” In recent weeks there have been several reported incidents in which Muslim fighters evidently slipped out of the enclaves to raid Serb targets.
Asked if such assaults had been carried out by Muslim forces inside Srebrenica in recent weeks, a U.N. spokesman in Zagreb, Philip W. Arnold, replied: “It’s quite clear that there have been attacks by both sides that contradict their commitment to maintain this as a demilitarized area.”
Refugees interviewed on Thursday gave remarkably similar accounts of what they saw in Srebrenica. Their stories were graphic and horrific.
“I saw many bodies lying on the street,” said Beb Usmanovic, 25, as she cradled her 4-year-old son. “The men have all disappeared, and we think they may be dead. We are so scared, so sad, that we don’t know what to do.”
Muska Hasj, 24, said she saw women surrender themselves to rampaging Serbs in efforts to protect their families.
“The Serbs were running through the streets with knives,” she said. “They took some women away, and others hid inside their homes hoping not to be taken. A few went without protesting. I think they had lost their minds.”