When the Bosnian Genocide began to unfold, the little Bosniak villages of Gornji and Donji Begići near Sanski Most, Bosnia, had no idea of the apocalyptic nature of what they were about t…

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1. Srdjan Aleksić (1966-1993)

   

   Born on May 9, 1966, in Trebinje, Srdjan Aleksić was an aspiring actor when the calamity that would come to be known as Bosnian Genocide began to unfold. In 1993, when he saw the Serb extremists physically abusing a Bosniak friend of his, Alen Glavović, he confronted them and stopped the inevitable murder. However, they turned their anger onto Srdjan, was then severely beaten and put into a coma. Later he would die at a hospital. Alen, who survived and today has a family in Sweden, goes to Srdjan’s grave every year. Meanwhile, there is no Monument to Srdjan in Trebinje because the town is still under control of genocide denying Serb extremists.

2. Branko Samardžija (1930-1993)

   

   Every Bosniak village in Ključ region was genocided in 1992, except one: Bešići. When war began, an elderly local Serb Branko Samardzija grabbed his gun and came into a Bosniak village of Bešići and asked to stay with them. He knew Serb extremists had plans to genocide the village and took upon himself to stop them. When they finally came to murder everyone, Serb extremists were met by Branko at the front of the village who told them: “You can go in, but only over my dead body.” Shockingly, they turned around and left. So did others who came after them. In 1993, Branko was murdered by two petty thieves form a nearby Serb village, but his actions saved the lives of Bešići. After the war the villagers built him a memorial gravestone, an his son Milenko said: “I am proud my father died defending the Bosniaks. If God forbid this happens again, I know I am strong enough to take his place.”

3. Borka Ožegović (1938-2000)

   

   An elderly Serb woman from Manjaca accidentally stumbled upon a mass grave “Jama Bunarevi” near her home, and found dozens of bodies belonging to Bosniak prisoners of Manjača Concentration Camp, who were murdered in 1992. She reported it to authorities, who recovered and identified the bodies. 6 months later 3 men appeared at Borka’s home and sat down to have a coffee with her. In middle of it they tied her hands and legs with tape and slit her throat, murdering her brutally. Borka knew the risks when she reported the mass grave, as Serb extremists hold the entire Serb population hostage under threat of violence or murder if they assist authorities in locating mass graves or perpetrators.

4. Goran Čengić (1946-1992)

   

   Born on April 21, 1946 in Sarajevo, Goran was a professional handball player living in the Grbavica section of Sarajevo when Serb army took over the area and began to rape, torture and murder Bosniak and Croat civilians. When Serb extremists came to his floor of the building he lived in, Goran attempted to stop Serb war criminal Veselin Vlahović “Batko” from murdering elderly Bosniak profesor Husnija Ćerimagić. Sadly, Batko, who would later be known as “Monster of Grbavica” murdered both men. Today, the sport center in Grbavica carries his name.

5. Lazar Manojlović (1934-2016)

   

   Born in 1934 in Velika Obarska near Bijeljina, Lazar Manojlović was a legendary teacher and school principal in Bijeljina, who risked his own life when he managed to get several Bosniaks out of the Batković concentration camp, falsely claiming that he needed them for work. Furthermore, he refused to expel students and teachers of non-Serb nationality from his school, as well as destroy sculptures and art that was deemed illegal by Serb extremists. Later he would go on to say: “The price I paid for my disobedience is little compared to the fact that I saved my conscience. I never bent to anybody’s will, and I kept myself honest and proud, although I was completely alone.” Lazar survived, and went on to live until March 2, 2016.

6. Dragan Andrić (1956-2004)

   

   Born in 1956 in Konjic, Dragan was an activist who helped refugees in Herzegovina during the war and saved dozens of civilians who were sentenced to death. After the war, Andrić worked as an inspector in the secret services tasked with gathering information about war criminals Karadžic and Mladic and about the other leaders of organized crime in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sadly he died in 2004 at only 48 years old, under suspicious circumstances.

7. Čedomir Domuz (1960-1992)

   

   Born on March 30, 1960 in Binježevo near Sarajevo, and nicknamed “Bato,” Čedomir was told to join the Serb forces during their plans to besiege and murder everyone including me and my family in Sarajevo. Now, Bato did join a military unit alright, a unit of Bosnian Army tasked in defending areas near Sarajevo on Mount Igman, and thus gave extremist Serbs a huge middle finger. Sadly, he would go on to die in the battle of Trnovo, and be awarded the Golden Lily medal, highest honor of the Bosnian Army.

8. Radenko Abazović (1957-1992)

   

   Born on May 29, 1957 in Rogatica, Radenko moved to Sarajevo and was a worker in a funeral service “Pokop.” When he was summoned by some of his own family members to join the Serb army in 1992 in order to murder and displace all Bosniaks, Croats and other non-Serbs from the planned “Greater Serbia” Ethnostate, he said, “nah, I think I’ll pass.” At the beginning of siege of Sarajevo, the workers of the “Pokop” saw that it was best to dig new graves in advance, because it was known that someone would be laid to rest in them very soon. So at the Lav cemetery, which was reactivated during the war, they dug about twenty graves in advance. Abazović personally dug five or six graves by himself. That day, they were offered the option to join the Bosnian Army and defend the city. Radenko joined, but just a few days later, in the battle of Stup, he was killed when a mortar shell fired from the Serb extremist position flew through the hatch of his RV, killing the entire crew. That day, Radenko was buried in the same grave that he dug just a few days before.

9. Miodrag Vržina

   Born in Vlasenica, nicknamed “Miki,” he knew ahead of time that the local non-Serb population would be genocided. Anti-Bosniak graffiti and threats had already made that publicly clear, but the local Bosniaks had a hard time believing this reality. One day, Miki found a neighbor family Dzodzaljević, and told them: “You must leave Vlasenica, and I must help you. It is my duty to take you out of here.” He had the family quickly pack up their stuff into his car, and he drove them to freedom. Sadly, sometime later during the ear, Miki died.

10. Bogić Bogičević (1953-)

    

    Born on May 15, 1953, in Ugljevik, Bogičević was the president of Bosnia when “Greater Serbia” ethnonationalists took the levers of power in Yugoslavia. When Serb extremist president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, asked for a vote to authorize use of military to attack Slovenia and Croatia in order to topple their presidents, he was counting on Bosnian president and an ethnic Serb Bogić Bogičević to give him to pivotal “yes” vote for authorization. Except, Bogičević actually decided to represent Bosnia and voted “no,” to shock of all Serb nationalists. Later, Bogičević said “I’m a Serb, but not by profession.”

More Great Serb Heroes to come soon!

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.

In Bosnia, then Yugoslavia, in 1991, it went something like this.

Early September 1991, in Mostar, a Bosniak couple, 27-year-old Ferida Šipković and 28-year-old Habib Šipković, conceive a child. The young parents of a 3-year-old boy, Huso, are overjoyed and hoping their next child is a little girl.

Fertilization occurs around September 1, 1991, a single cell forming a new human life. In the days that follow, September 2–6, the cells rapidly divide, and by September 11, implantation takes place as the embryo attaches and begins to grow.

September 19, 40 kilometers east in Nevesinje, near Habib’s village of birth Presjeka, the Yugoslav National Army takes strategic positions. In neighboring Croatia, which has just seceded from Yugoslavia, the same army launches assaults using the full arsenal of the fourth largest military in Europe, aiming to carve out a Greater Serbia ethnostate. Nevesinje becomes a staging point for attacks toward Dubrovnik.

Before moving further, the army purges Croats and Bosniaks from its ranks, becoming a de facto Serb extremist force. Harassment begins immediately—threats, beatings, houses shot at, checkpoints restricting movement, a de facto apartheid imposed on non-Serbs.

October 1, 1991, the ethnic Croat village of Ravno in south of Bosnia and Herzegovina is destroyed, its population becomes first to be genocided. Still, many Bosniaks refuse to believe this could happen to them.

By mid-September through late October (September 15–October 27), the embryo enters the embryonic stage—organs forming, the heart beginning to beat—while outside, the machinery of violence is quietly assembling.

October 14, 1991: Serb extremist political leader Radovan Karadžić stands in the Bosnian parliament and declares that if Bosnia secedes from Yugoslavia, same will happen to Bosniaks as it’s happening to Croatians now: “Muslims will disappear.”

In hindsight, not a warning, but an announcement.

By late October into November, the embryo becomes a fetus, continuing to grow, unseen, alive. Through winter, second trimester unfolds: bones form, features sharpen. Life advances toward birth as the world it will enter collapses.

February 29–March 1, 1992: Bosnia votes for independence. Bosnian Serbs boycott the referendum while secretly arming Serb civilians and preparing for genocide.

Following the Bosnian Independence vote, under orders from Belgrade, the so-called RAM Plan, a secret military plan developed in mid-80s, is initiated by Serb extremist president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic, and then put into motion via a written in a written order of Yugoslav National Army general Blagoje Adzic. The secret plan icalls for genocide of all non-Serbs by any means necessary.

The systematic phase of genocide is set in motion, paving the way to a Greater Serbia ethnostate.

Meanwhile, by late February into early June, the final trimester unfolds—the brain and lungs maturing—while outside, villages are surrounded, roads cut, escape routes closing. Habib and Ferida, like most Bosniaks, mired in cognitive dissonance, ignore all the glaring red flags.

Soon, the reckoning arrives, as Mostar is bombed by Serb extremists.

Around May 19, believing they are in mortal danger in Mostar, Ferida and Habib make a choice: stay in the city or return to Presjeka, deep inside Serb-controlled territory. Like many others, they cannot imagine their neighbors turning on them. “We will be safer in the village,” they decide.

Around May 20, they arrive in the little village of Presjeka. Compared to the shelling of Mostar, it feels calm. Safe.

By late May and early June, more families arrive to Presjeka and surrounding villages, with the same belief. Older villagers, shaped by World War II, insist armies pass through villages—they do not destroy them.

The recipe: Hide, wait, survive.

Temporary shelters are built in the hills. People retreat there when danger seems near, then return unharmed. Each return reinforces the illusion this plan will work.

June 14: after setbacks near Mostar, Serb forces turn on nearby Nevesinje villages. In Žulja, 33 civilians are killed. On June 15–16, at least 21 more are murdered in Rabina, Prijeki Grm, and Bakračuša, and 9 more in Čanje—some with skulls crushed, ears cut off. But, Presjeka does not know.

June 16: the first mass grave in all of Bosnia is discovered in Sutina near Mostar—26 civilians. Confirmation of genocide. Still, the information does not reach the isolated villages of Nevesinje.

That same evening, June 16, Ferida goes into labor.

After months of silent development, the child arrives.

Birth.

Little baby Šipković enters the world into smiles and joy—while, just 20 minutes away, entire villages have been massacred.

Ferida and Habib agree to name the little one later.

June 22: shelling begins in Presjeka. People flee to the hills, trapped, waiting. Then, a thick fog rolls in. Under its cover, they escape toward Kljuna, joining hundreds of others. Panic spreads.

A decision is made: cross Mount Velež. One route—steep cliffs. The other—longer, through forests. Families with children choose the forest route.

The baby, carried by her mother, walks tens of kilometers. Days pass—no food, little water, blistering heat. Around 80 people move together, starving, drinking whatever they find.

Near Mostar, at Jasenov Do, they see two soldiers who promise help. Believing they are safe, they follow.

They are captured.

At the school in Zijemlje, the ground is covered in blood. Locals gather outside, taunting them. Children throw rocks. Water is brought, then spilled, to mock their thirst. Insults echo: “We’ll kill you! It’s your fault you’re a Muslim!”

An officer named Zdravko Kandic arrives and orders men separated from women.

Habib cannot say goodbye, as he is shoved onto a truck with others.

He is taken with others, and walked to the edge of a cavern, which would later be known as Breza-Dubravica Primary Mass Grave.

Shots echo down the entire valley, well within the hearing distance of Ferida. His body falls a hundred feet below into a cavern.

Back at the school, the baby cries in her mother’s arms, unaware.

The women are taken to a heating plant in Nevesinje — still no food, no water, unbearable heat. People collapse. Mothers give children urine to keep them alive.

Nights bring drunk soldiers. Young women are taken to be raped, some never to be seen again.

Ferida is spared only because she has just given birth.

Days later, now collapsing from no food or water, they are loaded onto trucks again, then driven up a mountain road.

They realize too late: they arent being released.

At their final destination: an edge of a 100 meter cavern, which would later come to be known as Jama Lipovača.

Serb extremists, laughing, taunting the women and children finally grab one of the toddlers, hold it above the cave opening.

Babies scream. Mothers beg.

They throw the child into the cavern… alive.

A Serb extremist the grabs little Huso. He cries, “Nemoj čiko, molim te čiko.” Ferida begs for the life of her 4 year old boy.

But there is no mercy. He is thrown into the pit, his scream growing fainter as he falls 100 meters below.

Ferida screams as the baby is ripped from her arms. A soldier dangles her over the opening, laughing.

He lets go.

The baby falls.

Ferida breaks free and jumps after her.

Screams echo down the nearby village and into thr steets of Nevesinje.

Hours later, all the extremist soldiers long gone, children walk over from nearby Šehovina and hear faint screams rising from the depths. Days pass. The screams fade. Then silence. One of the teenagers, from Manjak family, has a mental breakdown and she is committed to a mental institution.

May 25, 1993, The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is formally established on by the United Nations Security Council.

Speleologists descend into the cavern. Under orders, they remove remains of dozens of children and more than a hundred civilians. The bones are taken. The secondary mass grave is never found.

Habib’s remains are later discovered elsewhere.

But the baby—little baby Šipković, with no first name—is still out there.

The only trace she had ever existed: a name etched in gilded letters of a monument in Kljuna.

Somewhere, in the dark, her bones lie scattered among others—too small, too fragile, too easy to hide.

People know where they are.

They have always known.

None have spoken.

On June 16, 1992, she was born into breath… and swallowed by their silence.

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.

You know that age old saying: listen to your elders? Well, what’s about when that knowledge no longer applies because things have chang…

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I’m a Bosnian genocide survivor, and this is 15 Lessons of the Bosnian Genocide, part four:

Lesson forty six. Sometimes, you can’t even trust your own mother. In the town of Kalinovik, when the Bosnian Genocide started, a 15 year old boy Stipo Varivoda was returned to his mother from the home for disabled children. He was born out of wedlock to a Croat father and a Serb mother. So when his mother joined the Serb extremist army, to prove her loyalty, she handed over her son to the genociders and said: you can take the “bastard” away. Stipo was then taken to a camp, then tortured and raped.

Lesson forty seven: Going off the previous lesson, genociders will not be mercuful to those with physical or cognitive disabilities. In the Nevesinje village of Kruševljani, Mirza Duraković, a 15 year old child in a wheelchair was burned alive. In another Nevesinje village of Żulja, 8 year old disabled boy Elvedin Čatić and his 20 year old disabled sister Hatidža, were murdered and thrown into Jama Lipovača pit. Meanwhile a cognitively disabled Croat woman was taken from home for the disabled in Domanovići near Čapljina, and put into a prison in Bileća where Bosniak and Croat prisoners were forced at threat of torture to rape her.

Lesson forty eight. Stop engaging in cognitive dissonance. In the village of ethnic Croat village of Briševo, near Prijedor, the locals were able to observe as the nearby villages were burned down one by one, and the entire time didn’t run because the engaged in cognitive dissonance, denying the reality that was staring them in the face, so they can soothe themselves by saying: “no, this can’t possibly happen to us,” while staring at literal massacres happening just a few minutes away. Finally the time ran out to try and run, and the village was surrounded and the villagers were brutally butchered.

Lesson forty nine. Do not let others slow you down when you are on the run. In Nevesinje, Čatić family from Hrušta was part of a larger group trying to escape certain death on foot across Mt Velež, however they decided to stay behind because the elderly from their family weren’t able to keep up. That one night they ended up lagging behind the larger group cost them being caught and almost entirely genocided.

Lesson fifty. Know how to swim. When a group of Bosniak men from the village of Hrustovo was captured and taken to Vrhpolje Bridge for execution, one man survived because he was good enough swimmer to jump off the bridge before being shot, then dive as deep as he could and swim at bottom of Sava river for 150 meters, out of sight, and bullet range of the genociders.

Lesson fifty one. Beware of mistakes made in the state of panic. In Nevesinje, one of the families, Šipković, in panic as an attack on their village began, forgot food, water and even shoes in some cases, making their subsequent 40+ kilometer run across Mt. Velež even more brutal, as they had no food, water, and brutally battered feet. Be prepared for sudden situations, and always have some dry food, water and extra shoes in a backpack that is always. hanging around the exit door.

Lesson fifty two. Sometimes not sticking together is best, use your instinct. In the village of Kljuna, a woman called Mejra “Plemka” Omerika decided to hide in a little cave away from everyone else as she had a bad feeling about so many congregating in one hideout spot. She was proven right when she wasn’t found and managed to survive and 16 others were caught and executed.

Lesson fifty three. Genociders love to gaslight. In the village of Čanje, the Bosniak locals began being attacked in middle of the night whole 2 years before the Bosnian Genocide began when their houses were shot at in middle of the night. WHen they reported this to local police and Serb civilians they were told: you’re just imagining things, nobody heard or saw anything. Locals began to doubt their own sanity, just to one night see the police and local Serb civilians sneaking up and attacking their village, and that they were the ones doing it all along.

Lesson fifty four. Don’t be compliant when it’s clear they are taking you to execution. When 200 Bosniak men who were imprisoned at Trnopolje Concentration Camp in Prijedor were taken to an execution at Korićani Cliffs, a few jumped down the cliff before the genociders shot at them. They suffered injuries from falling down the cliff, but mostly survived. Conversely, when a group of Višegrad men was taken to an execution at Paklenik Pit near Rogatica, one of them, Ferid Spahić, decided to run and managed to escape despite his hands being tied, making it harder far him to maneuver the landscape.

Lesson fifty five. Being pregnant and hoping genociders will show empathy won’t work. I had already previously talked about Zakira Begić in Bratunac, who was 9 month pregnant when when her Serb godfather shot her in the stomach, killing her unborn baby, then murdered her after. However arguably even more morbid event happened in Nevesinje where Sabira Šarančić, who was in advanced pregnancy, was continually raped until her baby died inside of her and was dumped together with Sabira’s body into trash. Are you guys even able to imagine the levels of evil we were subjected to?

Lesson fifty six. Use the landscape. Rememeber how people make fun of horror movies because the main characters often make terrible decisions that get them killed, like running around in the open or running up the stairs instead or leaving the house? Well, if you are on the run, use the forests, use the mountains, use caves. Steer clear of open spaces where you can be easily spotted and chased down. In other words use your brain.

Lesson fifty seven. If death is inevitable, take as many genociders down with you. Near the town of Vareš, a Bosnian Army fighter Edina Čamdžić was caught in a trap in the battlefield. Serb extremists told her to put her gun down and then approached her with the intention to gang rape her, she let them get close then set off an explosive that ended her life but also took all of the rapists and killers with her. She was awarded the Golden Lily Medal and the Medal of Bravery posthumously, two of Bosnian Army’s highest honors.

Lesson fifty eight. Eliticide is not a byproduct of genocide, but rather a feature of it. Eliticide is defined as the systematic killing of a community’s political and economic leadership so that the community cannot regenerate. Across most of Bosnia, and famously in Prijedor, Serb genociders created lists of who to prioritize when killing Bosniaks. At the top of those lists were political and religious leaders, intellectuals, experts, and so on. If you reseearch other genocides, this is the case in those as well, it’s a feature of all genocides, and if you, God forbid, find yourself in one, I can guarantee you it will predictably happen there as well.

Lesson fifty nine: Being a child will not save you from rape. In Foča, a 12 year old child Almira Bektović was kidnapped from her mother and taken to arguably the greatest place of evil, Karaman’s House in Miljevina. There, she was repratedly raped by over 10 different men, while also being forced to do labor. Eventually she was sold for a few hundred Deutsch marks as a sexual slave and taken to Montenegro, where all trace of her disappeared.

Lesson sixty. Do not make business deals with genociders hoping they’ll follow through. Also in town of Foča, family Klapuh made a deal with a group of Serb extremists to be evacuated ftom Bosnia to Montenegro. Once in Montenegro, the car stopped at the tall bridge over river Piva, and Klapuh parents and their daughter were thrown off the bridge to their deaths.

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.

So, I’m often asked, when did the Bosnian Genocide begin? Well, one can make a case it started in its more subtle forms in the little village of Čanje, near Nevesinje, in what was then Yugoslavia.

And what was that form? Gaslighting.

Gaslighting, named after the movie Gaslight, is a form of psychological and emotional abuse where someone persistently manipulates another person to make them question their own memory, perception of reality, or even sanity.

Yugoslavia, a country in southeast Europe, for 48 years lived under the illusion of safety and stability. Just like in most other seemingly stabile places, the police were entrusted with enforcing the “brotherhood and unity,” and as long as one didn’t discuss unsolved genocide against your family from WWII, or even dare look at the dictatorship in a nasty way, you were totally fine! Well, before one of its states, Bosnia and Herzegovina, descended into the dark ages, one place in Nevesinje county got an early taste of what was coming: the small village of Čanje.

I mean to be fair, perhaps the first taste of what was coming was in 1988, when a teacher called Gojko Stajić at a Nevesinje primary school “Blagoje Parović” forced a 2nd grade child named Emer Merzić to kiss a picture of Serb extremist Slobodan Milošević as a form of punishment. After Merzić refused and crumpled up the photo, he was expelled from the school. His parents were forced to take him to Mostar so he can finish his schooling.

But, after the first multiparty elections in Yugoslavia in 1990, things got very real in Čanje, a Bosniak section of a larger multiethnic village of Odžak, when, in middle of the night, residents began hearing gunshots, then finding bullet holes in different houses. When they went to report the crime to Police station in Nevesinje, they were called crazy and laughed out of the building. “You are seeing things, It never happened,” the head of police, a man called Krsto Savić, said. Then, the villagers started organizing night guard where a couple a villagers would remain awake all night and keep an eye on what’s going on. Among them, a man called Hamid Mutilović, and another, Mušan Šarančić.

Each night they spotted cars roll into the village, with headlights off. Then, unknown assailants would fire shots at houses, and quickly leave. This terror went on every night, and then during the day when Čanje residents asked local Serbs what they heard or what they know, the answer would always be the same: they heard nothing, and know nothing, “you people are just going crazy,” they said.

Then, things escalated when a small detachment of Yugoslav National Army appeared on hill above the village. Nobody knew why they were there, and nobody answered any questions when asked. Their multiple pocket launchers, known as VBR vehicles, ominously kept their barrels aimed at the village. A few nights later, in middle of the night, parachute flares began being fired over Čanje, illuminating the whole area as they slowly descended down to the ground and burned out. Again, in the morning, local Serb villagers would say: “No, that never happened.”

Then, one night, the Čanje night guard, spotted the assailants who rolled into that village to fire guns, and this time because of the parachute flare, they were illuminated: allegedly they were Nevesinje police officers. Alarmed, the Bosniak locals went to the police of nearby city of Mostar, and reported that they were being fired upon by Nevesinje police offers. Mostar police simply told them: report it to Nevesinje police, it’s out of our jurisdiction.

Hamid Mutilović noted: “As bad as 1992, those two years, 1990 and 1991 were the worst for me. Every night was psychological terror, and we were made to feel like we were going crazy, like it wasn’t really happening.”

Then, one day, they were finally told by a local Serb: “You guys aren’t getting the message are you? They want you to leave so Serbs coming in from regions in Croatia can live in your houses.”

Sadly, nobody in the village took this seriously, at least not at first. Then, after the March 1, 1992 referendum where Bosnia voted to join Slovenia and Croatia and secede from Yugoslavia, the local Serbs, many their very own neighbors went from “we know nothing” and “we have heard nothing” to showing up to harass Čanje Bosniaks in broad daylight, suddenly armed with military grade weapons. Turns out, while Bosniaks were voting for their independence, Serb civilians were secretly being armed and prepared for a genocide.

Once those weapons were in place, all the masks came off.

Alarmed, most of the Bosniaks from Čanje moved up north, and settled in area around the village of Kljuna, or went to hide in nearby forests. However, 13 civilians remained in the village, still not realizing the full severity of their situation, and now the time had run out as the total annihilation stage of the Bosnian Genocide had finally reached Nevesinje. On June 14, Serb extremists wiped away a nearby village of Žulja, murdering 33, including elderly and children. Following two days they murdered 22 more Bosniaks in Rabina, Bakračuša and Prijeki Grm.

All those who remained in those villages were essentially annihilated, closing the only scape route for Čanje.

Which brings us to June 16, 1992, when the villagers looked around and saw that Čanje was entirely surrounded. With Yugoslav National Army heavy weaponry on the hills above, the nearby Serb civilians who had gaslit Čanje for over a year helped blockade the remaining Bosniak villagers in. Then, suddenly, a voice was heard over the megaphone: “Surrender your weapons and come outside, your safety is guaranteed and you will be evacuated towards Mostar.” And who was the voice? Well, allegedly, it was that of Milan Ðerić, a police officer from Nevesinje. Yes, the police who came and shot at Čanje houses in middle of the night, and then gaslit the residents into nearly doubting their own sanity, had now gone full mask off.

With virtually no other weapons but a couple hunting rifles, Čanje villagers decided to surrender. However, they simply didn’t understand this was a total genocide, and in this case surrender meant death. The Nevesinje police officers, aided by the local Serb civilians who had all lived by the “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer” philosophy, had reserved the some of the cruelest of fates for Čanje.

One by one, they grabbed the villagers and murdered them by crushing their skulls with blunt metal objects. Stocks of their rifles, hammers, shovels. Four elderly women from the village managed to survive by hiding in the tall grass, where nobody managed to spot them, listening to the screams and shouts of their suffering family members.

The following day, with Serb extremists gone, Mušan, who was hiding in nearby forest with his wife, mother and some of the other villagers, came to see what happened. Nothing could have prepared him for the kind of medieval savagery he was about to see.

IBRO KEVELJ, 90 years old, murdered next to his house. Head entirely smashed in with a blunt metal object. Mušan then found the following villagers in similar state:

ÐULSA KLJAKO, 61

AVDIJA MUTILOVIĆ, 68

MUJO MUTILOVIĆ, 70

BAJRO ŠARANČIĆ, 34

SUAD ŠARANČIĆ, 32

FADIL ŠARANČIĆ, 35

MUNTA ŠARANČIĆ, 88

NEFA ŠARANČIĆ, 70, had her face crushed but also her throat slit.

Missing was Nefa’s 80 year old husband JUSO ŠARANČIĆ, who managed to escape the village amid the attack. However, 10 days later he would be caught and executed in one of the cruelest ways anyone had been in all of the Bosnian Genocide. He was tied to car tires, which were set on fire, slowly burning him alive.

Years later, another Nevesinje police officer, Željko Pašajlić, confessed to have found the bodies, then buried them into a mass grave at the nearby Bosniak cemetery. Today, a little monument to the murdered Čanje villagers sits there.

To this day, nobody has been charged for their murders. The police officer who allegedly told the village to disarm, Milan Ðerić, is free. Only the head of all police in Nevesinje, Krsto Savić, and his deputy Milko Mučibabić, were sentenced for police crimes around Nevesinje.

Hamid Mutilović survived, despite losing his family members. Mušan Šarančić did as well, sadly his 20 year old pregnant wife Sabira, and his 50 year old mother Zejna, were also murdered sometime after July 16th. However, Mušan’s story of survival was so brutal that it warrants another video.

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.

In April of 1992, Serb extremists, using full resources of the 4th largest army in Europe at the time, began a genocidal campaign to murder, rape, torture and displace all non-Serb population of Bosnia in order to create a Greater Serbia ethnostate.…

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You know those cliche Hollywood films where intellectually bankrupt screenwriters resort to having a man’s entire family murdered to justify a revenge plot, and we roll our eyes and say here we go again, didn’t I see this movie a 1000 times? Well, what is such a scenario actually occurred in real life? A chance for a literal eye for an eye?

On June 13, 1992, a year long psychological terror campaign of Serb extremists against this little village, Žulja, near Nevesinje, Bosnia, escalated into an outright genocide. However, before the Serb extremist forces put his plan into motion, they sent a few men with dogs to stroll through the village, walking around, shooting off their guns and making menacing threats.

The act drew the attention of a young man called Ismet Čatić, who lived in the house at the center of the village his family. He quicky survailled the outskirts of the village seeing g building up Serb forces, forming a siege. However, he was alarmed by something else even more. Some months earlier, Ismet and other Bosniaks in Žulja made a deal with Serbs in neighboring village of Žuberin: if Croatian HOS units come around, Bosniaks promised to protect the Serbs, and if Serb Extremists come around, the Serb neighbors promised to protect Bosniaks in Žulja.

So that evening, with Serb extremists swarming around the village, the absence of their Serb neighbors from Žuberin was very apparent. In Ismet’s gut he knew their absence was not accidental, and that he and others in the village have been betrayed, and are in great danger.

Alarmed, he called his family to a meeting and urged them that they all leave the village immediately. However, they did not share the level of his concern, so none of them were up to doing that. His father told him: “Nobody will hurt me, I’m not guilty of anything, you go, and I’ll let the sheep out in the morning. If something happens in the morning, I’ll try to get away, if not, someone needs to take care of the livestock.”

Ismet’s mother, two younger sisters and his older brother agreed. However, having heard the rumors of Serbs detaining the military age men, Ismet’s family agreed that it was best for him and other military age men in the village to leave. Torn about going and leaving his family behind, Ismet at least tried to convince his brother and sisters to leave, but they declined and said: we might go hide nearby village of Kamenica if anything happens.

Ismet however had another thing weighting over him. He knew the area around his village so well that he was the only person in the village that could walk in any direction in pitch black darkness and find his way to any nearby village or town, and that he was needed to lead the group who agreed to leave Žulja so they can have any chance to sneak by the Serb extremists had now surrounded the village. Between a rock and a hard place, Ismet made a fateful decision to leave, under the cover of the night, bringing around 40 other men with him. Knowing the terrain like the back of his hand, Ismet successfully navigated the group to Bosniak controlled territory near Blagaj, miraculously without running into a single Serb extremist unit on the way.

The following morning however, Ismet and others see an ominous sign in the distance, in the direction of Žulja, a thick black smoke that could mean only one thing: the village has been set on fire. Then, a barely armed, ragtag Territorial Defense group Ismet had just joined decided to send a reconnaissance squad to Žulja, and when they get there they encountered only a few older women. “They took everyone, men, some women and children in the direction of Nevesinje,” one of them said. However, more ominously: an older man Avdo Zolj was decapitated alive, and an older woman, Fata Delić, was burned alive in her house.

“My father, my family? Tegy took them?” Ismet asked as, that horrible feeling in his gut felt like a twisting knife. Part of him wanted to keep hope alive, but the other part knew something horrific had happened.

In fact, that day, June 14, all the remaining men, mainly elderly, and many of the women, were taken to Nevesinje. Then, while the older women were sent in a different directions, the men, as well as a woman called Zajna Čatić, were taken up an ominous mountain road. When they arrived to their destination was a 100 meter natural cavern which would come to be known as Jama Lipovača. One after the other, they were shot and thrown into the pit. That day, Ismet lost 33 members of family and fellow villagers including 19 who shared his last name.

As this mass grave was moved to a secondary mass grave in 1993, only small fragments of some of the victims were recovered.

For the following two years, Ismet became the elite reconnaissance member of the 4th Corps of the Bosnian Army, leading many missions behind enemy lines as he navigated follow soldiers through total darkness, again and again slipping by the heavily armed enemy units, sometimes mere feet away. Sadly, all those times, he would never came across a single clue of what happened to his family. However, then came 1994, and Bosnian Army’s decision to try and liberate the Bosniak villages on west side of Nevesinje, and on their path: the Serbs in Žuberin who were housing Serb extremist army’s logistics and food supply at the local school which Ismet attended as a child, and who broke their promise to Ismet and his family in Žulja.

The operation named “Fall 94” saw Bosnian Army advance quickly and capture several villages, finely reaching outskirts of Žuberin, surrounding it, and catching Serb army totally unprepared. Within minutes, Ismet and his unit neutralized the Serb army troops and destroyed their headquarters, and were suddenly completely in control of the village. As Ismet walked in, he saw the neighbors whom him and his whole family once trusted, terrified. 28 Serb villagers stood there, petrified. One Serb girl, Gordana Čabrilo, whom Ismet knew all his life recognized him and ran up. She placed her hands around him, in a bear hug, shaking in fear. “Ismet, please save us!” He told her: “go inside your house and make coffee for my men, and bring some food.” Minutes later, hungry and exhausted Bosnian soldiers sat there drinking coffee, awaiting food as a sheep tuned on the spit.

Ismet looked at her and others and asked: “What happened to my family?” As many sheepishly looked away, one uttered: “I swear we don’t know. All we know is they put them on trucks and drove them to Nevesinje.” Ismet looked at all of them and asked: “Why didn’t you come and help us that day?” Not a sound was heard from any of them. Suddenly, a fellow solider from Ismet’s unit shouted: “counterattack!” as they spotted a large mix more numerous and armed unit of Serb extremists moving toward them. Ismet told his unit to move back towards Mostar. One of his men asked him, while looking at the 28 Serb civilians who were standing there: “What do we do with them?”

Ismet, grasping his gun, held his gaze on the crowd, moving his eyes from one to the other terrified civilian.

The moment seemed to last forever.

He then lowered his gun and said: “We let them all go.”

Ismet and his unit successfully returned to safe area near Blagaj. They ultimately weren’t able to liberate areas west of Nevesinje, but Ismet would later say: “We didn’t win that battle, but I won the greatest battle in my life. Battle with myself.” I don’t know what I would have done in his shoes, do you? They say that true character is revealed under pressure, and that day, Ismet could have revealed he was a monster, just like those who murdered his family, and who were never arrested and tried since. Instead, Ismet revealed he was a man better than just about all of us.

Ismet‘s family murdered in Žulja were:

• Elvedin Ćatić — 8

• Esad Ćatić — 30

• Fata Ćatić — 67

• Fatima Ćatić — 60

• Hadžira Ćatić — 80

• Hata Ćatić — 47

• Hatidža Ćatić — 21

• Ibro Ćatić — 30

• Juso Ćatić — 71

• Meho Ćatić — 70

• Meho Ćatić — 44

• Mujo Ćatić — 79

• Ramo Ćatić — 62

• Ramo Ćatić — 43

• Saja Ćatić — 68

• Salko Ćatić — 51

• Smajo Ćatić — 51

• Šaćira Ćatić — 47

• Zejna Ćatić — 56

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.

Ever find yourself doing things you know are bad for you, but you do them anyway? Ever see things you know are red flags, but choose to ignore them? Ever been convinced of something so …

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You guys know that drawing of a flock of sheep falling off the cliff, while the one black sheep struggles to make its way through the crowd going the other way? Well… that black sheep just happened to be living in the little village of Rabina, near Nevesinje, Bosnia, an unlike in that image, this one managed to stop almost that whole flock from going right off the edge.

On June 14, 1992, Serb extremists, looking to create a Greater Serbia Ethnostate, began their genocidal campaign in the area of Nevesinje by attacking the village of Žulja. Just a few kilometers away, in the village of Rabina, a teenage boy Omer Mičijević heard distant explosions and then saw billowing smoke of the burning houses of Žulja, which soon blanketed the entire sky on a bright sunny day, entirely drowning out the sun, like a premonition of apocalypse.

The sight reminded Omer of something he was once told as a small child by his grandfather. When he was taking care of his grandfather in the late 80s, who was sick, Omer noticed that his grandfather pretended to be sleeping every time a Serb neighbor Andjelko would come over. After Omer asked his grandfather about why he did that, he told him a story which would etch itself into Omer’s mind.

In 1942, in the nearby village of Bišina, Andjelko and a group of fellow Serb extremist Chetniks kidnapped a young Bosniak man and nailed him to a tree and left him there to die. “This Andjelko?” Omer asked him. His grandfather explained that after WWII, members of the Chetniks were rehabilitated and went back to live where they are from and Yugoslav government forbade anyone from reporting their crimes or discussing them, at the threat of prison or even death. Omer’s grandfather took a major risk telling him this, and told him to keep it private. However, the concession fundamentally altered Omer’s mind, as he understood that the entire society was living on a web of lies and deceptions and that his seemingly nice elderly neighbor was in fact a stone cold murderer who couldn’t be trusted. Although some told Omer, don’t mind your senile old grandfather, he’s just talking nonsense… Omer could not walk back past the watershed moment he had just crossed. Years later, Omer would say: “That moment taught me many lessons, none more important that I could never be allowed myself to be caught by Chetniks alive.”

So in lead up to the war, as early as 1991, Omer began seeing as menacing Serb reservists passed through their village on way to their attacks on Dubrovnik area in Croatia, then coming back with trucks of stolen loot and valuables later. He knew anything could happen, and began organizing night guard with others in the village, so a couple of villagers armed with just a handful of hunting rifles, would stand guard to make sure the houses aren’t looted overnight. Little did they know, evil that had come upon this region had much more devious plans.

Omer’s village, Rabina, was a half Bosniak half Serb village near Nevesinje, so in early 1992, the Serb neighbors that Omer’s grandfather asked him to be vigilant of, proposed a village meeting to discuss how to defend the village amid rising tensions. During the meeting, the Serb locals proposed a plan: we will defend you against Serb extremists and you guys defend us against Croatian HOS units and any Bosniaks. While others in the village thought this to be a fair plan, Omer remembered his grandfater’s warning and suspected something seemingly no Bosniaks did in the entire country: our neighbors are living a double life and that although they were friendly up front, their true modus operandi was: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

His suspicions seemed even more warranted when in the middle meeting the Serb neighbors suddenly asked the Bosniaks: “so…. how many weapons to do you have.” Omer knew the whole meeting was organized so this very fact could be established, but his fellow Bosniak villages, mired steep in denial, wilfully gave away exact numbers of guns: just a few hunting rifles. Omer tried convincing his family and neighbors that they are not safe to stay, but just about everyone couldn’t possibly imagine their neighbors would ever turn on them. Omer was turned down again and again by everyone. “You’re over the top, you’re alarmist. Oh would you give it up?” they said. But, deep down, he knew he was right and everyone else… wasn’t.

Even later, when two of their villagers, returning home from nearby Mostar, were shot at somewhere on the road, everyone but Omer mostly brushed it off as an accident. With each escalating act, he knew in his heart, something apocalyptic will happen.

Then, June 14th came and Omer saw the billing smoke from nearby Žulja and knew, their doomed fate had arrived and it is now or never time: He finally had to heed the warning of his grandfarher and make the village believe him. He comforted the village and told them: we must not fall into the hands of the Chetniks. Finally, seeking the sky blanketed in smoke from Žulja, the villagers decided to act. The group quickly organized, waited for nightfall, and began their escape towards Bosniak controlled territory in Mostar. However they left behind some elderly men and women as well as a some younger women with small children who said couldn’t go. They figured: Serb extremists would only be interested in fighting age men… but what they didn’t understand that behind that billowing smoke that had clouded the sky was an unfolding massacre… in which anelderly man was decapitated alive in front of villagers, an elderly woman was burned to death, and other helpless civilians were kidnapped or hunted down and murdered.

While Omer and most of the others who ran reached safety of Bosniak controlled areas of Podveležje by early morning hours of June 15, 1992, Serb extremists arrived to Rabina, on a high from looting and murdering in Žulja and looking to massacre the village, they found it nearly empty. Their commander, called Baćina, tortured remaining villagers in Rabina In anger after finding out that everyone escaped. Serb extremists tortured and shot the elderly couple Adam and Hava Hajdarevic, as well as three other civilians Fatima Mičijevic, Fatima Šehic and Mumin Gaštan, who attempted to flee the tortures. Given that 33 civilians had died in Žulja, 5 who died in Rabina, out of what was a total of 338 Bosniaks there in 1991, was seemingly a complete miracle.

Or was it? Had Omer not convinced most of the village to evacuate, possibly dozens or even hundreds may have died. Thankfully we will never know. So no, there was no miracles here, this was one “black sheep” who finally had their way. A man who was anything but a sheep, an spent the rest of the war fighting and defending city of Mostar from the same fate as the Bosniak villages near Nevesinje. One vigilant non conformist who refused to go along with everyone, chose to heed the warnings of the past, stuck to his guns, literally and figuratively, and save almost his entire village. So for all of you “black sheep” out there, telling the truth even when everyone refuses to listen… never give up.

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you

Sometimes, your place of living just happens to be in the most unfortunate area, or rather, an area the enemy considers of geo strategic importance. This has certainly been the case with th…

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So, i’m sitting here in my car that entirely burned down (because someone wanted to stop me from talking about the Bosnian Genocide?) last week. When I let my friends know what happened, so they can hopefully help me get it replaced (and you can, too, by donating at www.theactsofreburial.com :), a friend of mine jokingly said: next time get one of these and sent a photo of the 1979 “Ghost Camaro.” I laughed, then figured: let’s tell the story of one legendary car from the burned remains of another.

During the Bosnian Genocide, thousands of foreigners flooded Bosnia, they were there for various reasons, both good and bad. From those doing UN missions, to those delivering humanitarian aid, to lost souls coming to commit a suicide only to find a purpose in ashes of burned out cities and villages, to those reporting on the conflict, to those helping remove land mines, to those shamelessly trying to build a career off of back of genocided people, to those being foreign intelligence operatives, gun dealers, and even rich sociopaths paying $100,000 to shoot Bosniak civilians with snipers.

…and then there was Helge Meyer. As the legend goes, he was sitting on his couch in Denmark when he saw the news of starving Bosnians in rural parts of Bosnia, where humanitarian aid often couldn’t reach. A religious man who allegedly read Bible for hours each day, Helge figured I have to do something about it, I will deliver the aid myself, with my own car. And the car? A 1979 Camaro in his garage. But how to get it to Bosnia?

Well as legend goes, he was laughed out of a UN office when he offered his services, then decided to drive to US Air Force base in Germany and asked them to help him get his car to Bosnia with one of their freight planes. They decided to help him, but upon hearing his plans and seeing his car they said: you’re going to need upgrades. So, in a scene straight from a movie, they began modifying the car.

They welded armor to the Second Gen General Motors F-Type body, added Kevlar inserts in the doors, and upgraded the 5.7-liter V8 350 from 220 to 440 horsepower via Nitrous Oxide canisters, attached a hood blower, an iron reinforced iron landmine-clearing blade, run-flat tires, and a huge armor plate to cover that rear window. They then added GPS, a thermal imaging system, a fire extinguishing system, and a high-frequency ground-to-air radio. They pulled all the interior lights out, so the car could operate in darkness using only thermal and night-vision goggles for navigation. Oh, and they painted the entire thing with matte black stealth paint that wouldn’t pop on enemy thermal or radar.

Not sure where the money for all those came from, but it’s pretty cool.

As a final touch Meyer strapped a small rubber duckie to the front of the car.

Meyer was allegedly offered weapons but he refused, taking only a helmet and a kevlar vest. “I only need this,” he said, holding up his Bible.

Finally, they dropped Meyer and his new Knight Rider meets Killdozer car off in Sarajevo, Bosnia and he immediately got to work. He loaded the trunk of his Camaro with hundreds of pounds of food, medical equipment, clothes, blankets, water, and even toys us children who were stuck in hell that would come to be known as Bosnian Genocide.

Nobody knows how many missions Meyer ran, but it is rumored several hundred, often going only in total darkness, guided by thermal and night vision goggles. Between 1992 and 1995, he delivered thousands of pounds of food across Bosnia, focusing on hard to reach areas. Oh and Meyer, a chain smoker, fit right in with the locals in Bosnia, where seemingly even 5 year olds smoke.

And allegedly he did it without the approval of any government, or NGO, and without ever a weapon larger than a pocketknife. Or did he?… Meyer was a highly trained member of the elite Danish Special Forces Jagercorps, trained in fighting, survival and intelligence gathering. He was a man prepared to survive in worst conditions. So, was he in Bosnia as an intelligence operative? Were there ulterior motives to US Air Force helping him? Who knows, but the aid he delivered undoubtedly helped people, and it’s a cool story anyway.

By 1995, he had allegedly taken a bullet in the helmet, many in the armor plating of his car, and even dodged explosions of several road mines and shells, escaped AK wielding extremist thugs, and somehow emerged otherwise unscathed. His car would come to be known as “Ghost Camaro,” and he would be given the nickname: “God’s Rambo.” Today he lives in Germany, with his beloved Camaro back in his garage.

In his book he described one of his encounters with a family he delivered aid to: “In the middle of the ruins, I examined the surrounding area with my detector, which reacts to body heat. It displayed body heat in the opposite ruin. I saw a candle light through the boarded up door. I knocked and the candle went out immediately after knocking again and saying, “Mr. Meyer, US Army.” An old man opened the door and asked me inside. A young woman was present with her newborn baby. Everyone was dirty and clearly malnourished, and I got soap, water, food, and baby food from my Camaro. The young mother washed herself and her child and gave the newborn something to eat. We sat around the kennel, silent for a while. The old man read his Quran, and I my Bible, which is my constant companion. Then I pulled back into my car, was about to slip into my sleeping bag when someone knocked on my window. It was the young woman who put her baby on my bare chest. I will never forget this moment in my life.”

Helge, I don’t know if you’ll ever see this, but… thank you.

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.

In 1992, upon placing Bosnian capitol Sarajevo under siege, Serb extremists began to murder, torture and rape the civilians in surrounding villages.

One of that hose villages is Ahatovići.

As the Bosnian Genocide began unfolding, the village was heavily and indiscriminately shelled. The people hid in their basements and waited until the brutal attack stopped. When they stopped outside, every house in the village had burned down. However, things were about to get much, much worse. A particular event signaled just how bad it was going to get when a man called Osman Hrustanovic saw that Serb forces were taking over the village and said: “I won’t let them catch me alive, I’d rather take my own life,” then shot himself. His cousin, Kenan Jusufovic, who was just a child, saw this happen. In panic, Osman’s wife Šerifa grabbed the gun, Kenan, family members and tried to escape the village only to be caught in a clearing, surrounded by Serb extremists. Šerifa then turned to her family and said… “I can’t let them rape me,” and then she too took her own life. Kenan’s aunt Razija Vešic grabbed the gun and told Šerica’s daughter, who was with them, “Elma, don’t let them catch you alive,” then she too took her own life. Elma then grabbed the gun, and the lone remaining cousin, Ajša Novalija told Elma: “Please kill me.” Elma did. Then, she pointed the gun at her own head and Kenan tried to stop her. She told him: “Let go of my arm or I will kill you too.” He did, and she then took her own life.

Kenan was left alone.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the village, a group of men tried to mount the defense of the village, but completely not ready and with barely any weapons, they stood no chance. Many died, and those who survived were caught. Among them was Elvir Jahic.

Those captured by the Serb extremists were taken to Rajlovac military base, where for the next two weeks, they were beaten, tortured and starved. According to some of the testimonies of the survivors, prisoners were sprayed with tear gas for fun, the guards used attack dogs to injure many of the prisoners, and outright executed at least one prisoner and injured another to the point where he finally died. Prisoners were also starved, and then the guards would throw a few pieces of bread inside the area they were imprisoned in, asking men to fight one another over it.

On June 14, 1992, Elvir and 55 of the starved, emaciated, tortured men, were loaded on a city bus, and told they are being taken for a prisoner exchange. However, as the bus began to move away from Sarajevo an into the dense forests in the mountains above, the feeling of dread began to set in. Suddenly, the bus came to a stop. The Serb soldiers then said to the prisoners that the engine has overheated, and to lie down until they get water from a nearby creek. Serb soldiers walked out, climbed on a nearby hill, and pointed their guns at the bus.

The brutal massacre began when rocket launchers were fired directly into the bus, instantly killing dozens of prisoners. Panicked men inside couldn’t even attempt to escape as many were pinned underneath bodies, plastered and nearly suffocating from blood. Serb soldiers then fired thousands of rounds from their machines across the entire bus, murdering a dozen more prisoners. By sheer luck, Elvir and 7 other men who were trapped underneath bodies managed not to be killed either by the explosion or the bullets afterwards.

Afterwards, Serb extremists neglected to check the bus for any signs of life as they assumed the brutal onslaught surely murdered everyone.

After they left, Elvir and others managed to crawl from under the bodies, and ran into the forest. Two Bosniak men who were hiding nearby, heard the explosions and gunshots and then, afterwards, went to check it out. They found the bus completely destroyed with 46 mangled, butchered bodies inside. They ran and found others who were nearby, one of whom had a camera with him. Their subsequent video of the aftermath of the attack, as well as when bodies were finally retrieved and placed into a temporary grave, were among the first images the rest of the world saw of the genocide against Bosniak Muslims.

I appreciate that they left the bus itself at the monument to this massacre, it’s a bit like an interactive sculpture. Our collective memories have long begun to fade, but this makes the events here somehow more tangible.

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.

In 1992, when Serb army began their genocidal campaign to rid all the areas of Bosnia they controlled of Bosniak and Croat men, women and children, many attempted to escape death by running through the forests in order to reach the city of Bihac, which was controlled by Bosnian Army. Whi…

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Back in 1992, Serb extremists backed by murderous regime of Slobodan Milosević in Belgrade, began a genocidal campaign to kill and displace all non-Serbs from Bosnia in an attempt to create a Greater Serbia ethnostate. However, those were not the only non-Serbs targeted.

In the Serbian village of Sjeverin, which was composed mainly of Sandzak Bosniaks, and located on the border of Serbia and Bosnia, the fear and intimidation had already set in. Earlier in 1992, two men from Sjeverin called Ramo Berbo i Hasan Mujović were shot in broad daylight in the village, one of whose body was dragged in front of everyone to see, including the police, by unknown assailants, sending a message to Bosniaks that any of them can disappear at any time.

On the morning of October 22, 1992, a group of Bosniaks from the village boarded a bus traveling between the two Serbian cities of Sjeverin and Priboj, on their way to work. However, due to geography and roads, they had to briefly enter Bosnia on their journey. What these 15 men and 1 woman didn’t know was that the night before, one of their neighbors from Sjeverin, a Bosniak man called Sabahudin Catović was kidnapped, tortured and murdered, in a prelude on what is about to happen.

After the bus crossed into Bosnia, a group of camouflaged and masked men stopped the bus close to village of Mioče, next to a local bar Amfora. This was a Serb extremist paramilitary unit The Avengers, led by Milan Lukić. They the bus via both doors, trapping everyone inside, and told the driver to turn off the engine. Then, they asked everyone to show their IDs. Anyone with a Bosniak Muslim sounding name was ordered off the bus under the pretense that they will be taken for a prisoner exchange for Serb soldiers held by the Bosnian Army.

A member of The Avengers then told the bus driver to continue his route, but not before telling he entire bus: “You didn’t see or hear anything that just happened, because of you did, I know who you are, and where to find you.” However one of the Bosniaks they missed taking off the bus didn’t have an ID and he was a 13 year old child, who would later be the witness to the kidnapping. When the bus arrived to Priboj, Serbia, and kidnapping was reported, the local police simply ignored it, signaling that everyone may have been aware of what had just happened, and was told to stay quiet.

Meanwhile, the Sandzak Bosniaks of Sjeverin who were kidnapped, were shoved onto the back of a truck, which began to move towards the area of Višegrad, accompanied by a few members of Lukić’s paramilitary. It quickly became clear to the kidnapped group that they were not heading to any prisoner exchange, as they were ominously told to sing Serbian nationalist songs. Like in thousand other cases during the Bosnian Genocide, “prisoner exchange” really meant torture and murder.

Their fears were confined when they were taken to what before the Bosnian Genocide was a hotel and spa called Vilina Vlas, near Višegrad. What these terrified 16 Serb citizens did not know was that in the same building, hundreds to possibly thousands of Bosnian Muslim women were raped, many of whom were murdered as well. Or that inside the pool of the hotel, Bosniak were subjected to suffocation an murder. They in other words did not know they had just entered the house of horrors, the dungeon of a stone cold psychopath and his henchmen.

They were then led down the dark, creepy hallway of the rape camp Vilina Vlas, and brought into room where their torment would begin. Lukić was proud of what he was going to do that he even summoned a photographer Milan Timotić to take the photos of the beatings and tortures. The Avengers paramilitary unit began to beat the men with wooden sticks and batons, punch and kick them until the floors became slippery with blood. This was not merely Lukić enacting his psychopathic fantasies, he wanted it recorded so it would send a message to all the Bosniak citizens of Serbia: we are coming after you once we genocide all the Bosniaks in Bosnia, the same way the earlier public murders of the men on streets of Sjeverin were meant to send the same message.

After the torture photographs were taken, the 16 were loaded on the truck again and taken to a bridge on river Drina. One by one, their throats were slit and they were thrown into the river.

Meanwhile, the families of the murdered men and woman went straight to Belgrade to request a meeting with Milosevic, who rejected them. A separate meeting was held in Priboj, Serbia, attended even by the head of Bosnian Serb military, the infamous Ratko Mladic, to supposedly figure out what happened to these 16 Serbian citizens. Only a single person during this sham meeting was actually speaking the truth and said the quiet part out loud, a man called Zoran Čirković:

Meanwhile in Sjeverin, the fear and dread had set it, as some Sandzak Bosnia familes begin to leave and head to places where they felt safer. The effect of the murders had accomplished the larger goal of compelling some Bosniaks to leave their villages in Serbia and possibly the country altogether. And all while this was happening, no big protests in Serbia happened in favor of the humiliated, tortured, terrified and murdered Sandzak Bosniaks, sending a message that they simply don’t matter to the rest of the Serbian population.

In the 33 years since, what appears to be a Serbian government role in this massacre was never investigated. Only a single body was found when a dam, controlled by Serbia went into maintenance mode, lowering the level of water in Lake Perucac, and revealing 100s of dead bodies inside the lake. One of those bodies, that of Medredin Hodžić, was found.

What we can deduce is this: Serbia, which doesn’t participate in marking the massacre at federal level, or has prosecuted all those involved, has sent a message to their Bosniak

Muslim citizens of Sandzak that their lives simply do not matter. This is echoed by other Serb citizens who have never protested the fact that this has happened or that it remains unresolved. Lake Perucac, which possibly hides thousands of more bodies, is used and marketed as a tourist destination. Vilina Vlas, where 16 from Sjeverin were tortured, is being used as a hotel and spa, with rooms where thousands of women were raped that yourself can go and book today. The pool, where Bosniaks were suffocated and murdered is a selling point on the resorts social media pages.

Serb extremists are actively giving the middle finger to all of Bosniaks, Croats, Albanians and everyone else they have murdered, tortured and raped over the years, and from what I can see, everyone just puts up with it. You can choose to put your heads in the sand hoping all this magically goes away, but when you finally pull them out, you might find yourself in some reopened rape camp, being walked down to the torture dungeon. Oh and his time in the age of social media, it might be live streamed on their instagram page just for fun.

Meanwhile, back in Sjeverin. People just had to accept that 16 of their family members and neighbors were disappeared, plus those 3 more before the bus kidnapping. They had to continue to go to work and go about their business. That 13 year old boy, Admir Đikić, who wasn’t taken off the bus and survived later remarked: “Even today, when I drive past the burned-out Amfora cafe, I think of my father and those who were kidnapped with him. Not a day goes by without me remembering it. I often dream about my brother. I dream about him and several other kidnapped people being exchanged and coming back home. Then I start up and realize it’s just a dream”

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.

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KILL LISTS

Number one, the genocide was planned out well ahead of time, according to most of the evidence I’ve come across. Starting with what now looks like a nefarious 1991 countrywide census, which helped identify who lived in what village and what town, and based on their name, or what they presented themselves as, those lists were then used to find and target those specific people. Furthermore, they were also locally made lists, and those were, for example, made by local Serbs that were hanging out with the Bosniaks or, in some cases, Croats. So, therefore, based on these lists, they were able to be very specific in targeting. Entering each of those villages once the war began, they had essentially a kill list. In some cases, they had a rape list. In some cases, they had a list of who’s going to be taken to be forced labor. So, in other words, this was planned out well ahead of time. Centralized data centers are extremely dangerous when it comes to genocide, and now that it’s becoming digital, this could present an even larger problem in the future because, often, people are knowingly or unknowingly self-reporting certain things that are being then stored somewhere else. Well, then you can only imagine the modern digital based systems of tracking people, knowing exactly where people are, who they are, and so on, is going to be used with an even a higher level of precision to target and genocide certain groups. Other planning that was carefully done was scouting military positions. So, before the war even began, there were already plans drawn up as to which areas are going to get gridlocked and cut off, and where the military positions are going to be, and then how to create essentially kill zones of people where you would trap them in an area they wouldn’t be able to leave, and then you could go village by village and essentially eliminate them all, or a large number of them. So, in other words, the genocide was highly premeditated and very well planned out. (see: RAM Plan)

PERVERSITY

Number two, the murders were actually often a lot less clinical than they were in my mind. I had survived the Siege of Sarajevo, and of course, our experience was, you know, grenades falling down and killing people. Snipers killing people in the sniper alley, and now we know that those were both Serb snipers and foreigners coming in paying money to shoot people. However, in most of Bosnia, there was a lot of time taken to torture, humiliate, and beat people that were imprisoned before they were murdered, which means there was a sadistic and at times perverse element. Men were forced to have sex with other men, fathers and sons were forced to do sexual things at threat of murder. At times, some of these murders and torture were almost ritualistic. It was almost as if the murderers were entranced. Serb paramilitaries and soldiers would bust in and just rape women right in the spot. Often, children as young as 12 were raped. Many these rapes were planned ahead of time, such as men who were reared by a woman or admired a woman before the war used the opportunity to sexually enslave them once the thin veneer of civilization dropped off and Bosnia entered sheer chaos. This all comes from this kind of a supremacy complex where they felt like they were enacting some kind of a mythic revenge, and and rape was part of that. So, in other words, yes, there was some clinical aspects, but there’s also widespread perverse, downright medieval kind of stuff going on. And when it comes to these rapes, the goal was not just to humiliate the women. The goal was to impregnate them and force them to have children as means of genocide. There were also women inside of Serb army who were actually helping along with these rapes. They would organize groups of women as to which one is going to be raped by which soldier. They would also hold down these women while the men raped them, which actually echoes another event that happened in Bosnia in 1941, totally different war, into the town of Kulen Vakuf, and there were many cases there where the wives and husbands would sexually assault women. And this is now transgenerational, meaning it happened in World War II, and it was done by a completely different generation in 1992. This suggests a deep cultural problem, particularly as it relates to issues of rape and perversity. (see: Luka Concentration Camp, Karaman’s House in Miljevina)

THEFT

Number three, theft played a much, much more important role than I thought. There was petty theft, meaning every single time a village was entered, the first thing they wanted is money, which was at that point worthless in Bosnia cause Bosnia had seceded from Yugoslavia, but the money was still useful in Serbia. So, Serb soldiers, both the paramilitaries and the regular army, would always, when entering a village, first rob them. Rob them of money, rob them of valuables, and then, the thing I never really understood until I started researching, they went as far to also steal all the cars, tractors, appliances, kitchen elements, bathroom components, copper wiring etc. And in there were some cases where they would bust a convoy of trucks, and they would know ahead of time which houses to steal what from. You see, can’t just go and burn down an entire area. You have to make sure you have enough trucks to load up enough appliances in order to steal all that stuff. So, it does not make sense to just go and attack 50 villages in 2 days. You go one village at a time, and you may take multiple days in order to fully rob it. So, from that standpoint, there was a massive wealth transfer. None of that stuff was returned. So, we are talking about, if you do the math, probably billions of dollars of theft on top of, of course, trying to steal the land. The idea was to create a greater Serbia ethnostate and remove all other populations of that land and take it, but let’s not forget what was also stolen was an enormous amount of other kinds of wealth, which was never returned.

FORCED LABOR

Number four, forced labor was a much, much larger thing than I understood during the war. One of the reasons why some concentration camps kept going and going and going was because a lot of them were used as forced labor. The women were used as forced labor, too. Who was cleaning Serb military houses? Who was washing Serb military clothes? Well, it was women who were actually raped, then had to do forced labor, and they were raped again and had to do forced labor, sometimes for over 4 years. Lots of men were taken prisoners so they can dig trenches for trench warfare. A lot of them were made to build military objects. So, in other words, construction forced labor. They were also made to clean blood and remove bodies off of places of killing. What I found is that a lot of women, in particular, were taken across the border to Serbia and Montenegro, where they were held as sexual slaves, but also held as forced labor. They did forced labor there as well, and in some cases for multiple years before they escaped or were freed, and some, of course, were murdered. The other factor about the forced labor was slavery aspect of it, meaning that you weren’t just doing forced labor. They were you were actually, in some cases, sold to do that labor. (see: Oborci Massacre, Karaman’s House in Miljevina)

PATHOLOGICAL LYING

Finally, number five, lying was a major, major factor with a lot of these extremists. Every accusation is a confession. And what I mean by that is they used all sorts of propaganda in order to dehumanize Bosniaks and Croats and say things like, “Muslims are coming to rape you. Muslims are coming to steal from you. Muslims are coming to put you into slavery.” Except who did all those things? Well, the Serb army did all those things. However, some of the lying became very bizarre. One of the prison guards, for example, knew what had happened to one of the men’s wives, like she was taken, raped, and killed. And those guards would then say things to these imprisoned men, like, for example, “I hope your wife is doing okay.” Except at that time, they knew that the woman was already murdered, the woman was already raped and held as a slave. But they lied anyway, which is very strange given that they were planning to kill all these men later anyway. So, why even engage in lying when you’re going to kill them? This lying is pathological. Like, if your mouth opens, you’re lying. That is the aspect of this kind of supremacist societies. At some point, it’s actually kind of hard to tell whether these guys are lying consciously, or it’s almost like a default setting that whatever they say is some kind of a lie or deception. Because that story was so common, it was so pervasive, and I saw it in so many different places, that this has to be a deep-seated cultural issue. And then, furthermore, this aspect of lying conveyed to denialism, meaning to say that if there was a massacre, the “Muslims killed other Muslims to blame it on the Serbs.” And then, when they’re confronted with facts, often they would say, “Yeah, yeah, okay, we did it, but they deserved it.” And then, when pressed further, some of them would say, “Okay, yes, they were killed, but that’s part of war. What can we do?” But this lying had a kind of a zest and conviction behind it. This brainwashing is so deep ok cultural level, lying is so pathological, then you should just assume when these people open their mouth, lies come out.

I feel like some of these things are applicable in many other places, and hopefully, they’re helpful. Not to make you paranoid about the world, but rather to keep you a little bit more aware and vigilant about the world around you.

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.

In the late summer of 1995, Bosnian War tide had begun turning as Bosnian and Croatian armies mounted dual offensive in the Krajina region in northwest Bosnia. Towns of Ključ, Sanski Most and Jajce were f…

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I’m a Bosnian genocide survivor, and this is 15 Lessons of the Bosnian Genocide, part three: Nevesinje edition.

Lesson thirty one: Be the Black Sheep. Don’t be discouraged if you’re the only one who is taking something seriously. Omer Mičijević in Rabina, near Nevesinje, spent months trying to convince his fellow villagers that their Serb neighbors were living by “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” philosophy. He failed to make the take it seriously again and again. But in the last second, they did, and they escaped certain death by only a few hours. Never give up.

Lesson Thirty Two. Do not divulge to strangers or anyone really how many weapons you have. When in village of Rabina, Bosniaks told the Serb neighbors how many weapons they had (which was very few), that information was used during the attack on their village. Conversely, some villages were defended by a couple people using a couple of hunting guns because coward genociders were too afraid to mount an offensive, as they didn’t know what kind of resistance they’ll encounter.

Lesson thirty three. Sometimes, wisdom of the elders doesn’t age like wine, but rather turns to vinegar. Many elderly in the villages believed that if they just hide near their village until enemy army passes, they’ll be fine, as that was their experience in World War II. Except the game has changed, Serb extremist goal this time around was total annihilation of Bosniaks in the areas they controlled. This bad advice led to many not escaping when they could, and eventually getting murdered. This was done out of good intentions, but as they say, road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Lesson thirty four. Staying on the theme of elderly: being elderly won’t save you. When a group of 16, mainly women between the ages of 75 to 100 year old, was left behind in a tent village near the village of Kljuna, they believed their advanced age would make them of no interest to the murderers. Wrong, they were found not just murdered, but were half-beheaded from behind the back, as to increase their suffering. (see: Kljuna/Mavrove Podine Massacre, Čanje Massacre)

Lesson thirty five. Conversely, being a little child won’t make any difference in living or dying either. When a group of villagers, largely from Presjeka and Kljuna, were caught by the Serb extremists at Jasenov Do near Zijemlje, in the foothills of Mount Velež, among them were dozens of underage kids, including many under 5 years old. They were starved and given no food for 4-5 days, afterwards Serb extremists dangled babies over a 100 meter deep pit called Jama Lipovača and dropped them inside alive, and in at least one case a mother lept into the pit as her 7 day old baby was dropped into it alive. (see: Jama Pipovača murders, Suha Mass Grave in Bratunac)

Lesson thirty six. Don’t bank on your wealth or fame to save you. A wealthy local Bosniak in Nevesinje named Redžo Trebović first didn’t believe they would shoot him over taking his money, then when he was shot and tried to drive to local hospital, the Serb extremists doctors refused to take his money and eventually he bled to death in the reception area. (see: Redžo Trebović, Fikret Hidžić in Prijedor, Edin Salaharević in Vlasenica)

Lesson thirty seven. The fact you were kind to people before or during the genocide, not guilty of anything, and you think “Nothing will happen to me, I never did anything wrong to anyone.” Wrong, you’ll most likely be killed anyway, it’s a genocide, not a popularity contest. The fact you were a saint doesn’t mean anything to your genociders, who have reduced you to your name, religion, race, or waterever arbitrary thing a supremacist has decided to use as measuring stick on who should live or die. (see: Total genocide and erasure of Eso Sadiković)

Lesson thirty eight. Harder path of escape is often the better one. In Nevesinje, those who went right up the sheer cliffs of Velež Mountain to escape certain death, often lived, whereas those who took the perceived easier road going across the foothills of the north side of the mountain, ended up caught and almost entirely genocided. If it’s easier for you to run, it’s probably easier for your genocider to come after you. (see: Sanel Mutilović escape story across Velež, Merima Šipković-Begić story of near death at Jasenov Do)

Lesson Thirty Nine. Don’t assume because you have found a good hiding spot that you’ll be safe there forever. In the village of Bakračuša, an elderly couple had survived hiding for 2 months, eventually they were found and killed. If you have a chance to keep running to the next spot, do it, and never be complacent and rely on your instincts.

Lesson fourty. When on your run you see random soldiers without insignia or civilians, don’t assume they may be friendly. When a group of people were escaping across Jasenov Do, they saw two unmarked soldiers waving at them. Instead of all running for it, the group staid there till soldiers reached them, only then realizing it was the Serb extremists. All but 3 from that group of nearly 80 died. Had they all run, some might have survived. (see: Jama Lipovača murders)

Lesson forty one. When your house is shot at, don’t ever go back to it. When a Bosniak political leader from Nevesinje called Mujo Ćupina had his house shot at to the tune of 1000 bullets almost a year before the genocide began, he briefly fled to Mostar only to come back cause assurances were given he won’t be targeted. He was then apprehended, tortured, had his ear sliced off, then brought in front of a crowd of Serb civilians at a city square who were described like fans at a football game cheering on what type of tortures should be done to detainees.

Lesson forty two. Enemy civilians will rarely help you, they are mainly all in on it. When a group of women and children were imprisoned at Zijemlje, local Serb civilians, mainly women and children came to watch them be humiliated and beaten. They spat, threw rocks, and verbally degraded the kidnapped Bosniaks. Oh and because these tortured women and children had not had any water for days and were now cooking in summer heat, these same civilians brought water and then spilled it on the ground just to taunt the Bosniaks.

Lesson forty three. If running away in a group, send someone ahead to do reconnaissance. Šipkovic family from Presjeka was saved because their father would move ahead of the group and do surveillance. He spotted many Serb extremists, and helped his family maneuver around them, leading them to eventual safety, and avoiding certain death. (Merima Šipković-Begić story of near death at Jasenov Do)

Lesson fourty four. When your enemies spill the beans on what they are up to, believe them. In the village of Čanje, year before the genocide began, locals were readily shot at and harassed. When a local Serb woman came and told them they are being sent a message to leave so their houses, so those can be used by Serbs coming in from Yugoslav aggression against Croatia, the locals didn’t take her words seriously. Eventually Serb extremists began to execute them. (see: Radovan Karadžić telling Bosniaks in Parliament they’ll be wiped out of Bosnia votes to secede from Yugoslavia)

Lesson fourty five. Take time to intimately learn the landscape around you. Ismet Čatić from Žulja, who would later become an elite reconnaissance squad leader of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, knew his wider village area so well that he was able to navigate it in pitch darkness as to avoid thousands of enemy units that were stationed all around his village.

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.

I’m a Bosnian genocide survivor, and this is 15 Lessons of the Bosnian Genocide, part two.

Lesson sixteen. Military checkpoints are bad news. At the beginning of the Bosnian genocide, seemingly out of nowhere, military checkpoints began appearing everywhere. These were usually set up by Serb paramilitaries, the Serbian army, or sometimes the Yugoslav National Army, as a way of restricting freedom of movement for Bosniaks and Croats. In many areas, this created kill zones—places where people were trapped and forced to await their fate as extremists went from village to village, killing, raping, and displacing entire populations. (see: The Siege of Sarajevo, 1991 checkpoints in Nevesinje)

Lesson seventeen. If the military ever shows up unannounced and starts setting up camp or some kind of a mysterious military installation or some other kind of fuckery, expect something terrible is coming. For example, in the little village of Žulja near Nevesinje, in 1991, a full year before Bosnian genocide started, Yugoslav National Army and other kinds of creepy figures rolled in and set up camps all over the area. Turns out this was a strategic location from which they were going to attempt to genocide the Mostar region of Bosnia. The local villagers knew something was wrong and they felt nervous, but they didn’t panic nearly as much as they should have. When someone like that shows up, aren’t answering any questions, appear threatening, and at times violent, you need to take that seriously and get the hell out of there. (see: Žulja near Nevesinje being surrounded by military installation 1991, military installation at Lanište near Ključ constructed in secrecy in preparation for genocide)

Lesson eighteen. If an apartheid system begins forming by one group over another, one ethnicity over another, expect much worse things are coming. In many regions of Bosnia where Serbs took control as early as 1991, they quickly started to marginalize non-Serbs. Bosniaks and Croats were fired from their jobs, or they were demoted, or were put under house arrest, and so on. This is a very clear signal that things will escalate. Things never just stop at the apartheid. Once one group is marginalized, others will be, and eventually that apartheid will escalate into genocide. (see: Serb extremists taking control via “autonomous zones” around Bosnia and firing all Bosniaks and Croats, and then subjecting them to house arrest)

Lesson nineteen. If you ever told to report for “questioning,” don’t go. In Bosnia in 1992, Serb extremists had the full list of all Bosniak and all Croatian civilians in different villages and towns around the country. And when they would roll in, they would ask all men usually to come and report for questioning. And in most cases, those men were then imprisoned, murdered, tortured, and/or displaced. So in other words, if anybody rolls into town or village asking for you to report for questioning, run. Sometimes fight, but usually run. (see: Massacre in Velagići, Biljani, etc)

Lesson twenty. If extremists roll into your town and they start separating men from women, that usually means that men will be taken and murdered, or they’ll be taken to prison. So then, women will be attacked and would be usually be without defense. So, as soon as you hear men are being separated from women, assume that either the men, or the women, or both, will be dead and therefore fight or run immediately. (see: Nevesinje Bosniak civilian separations at Zijemlje, execution of men at Jama Breza-Dubravica, then all the women and children at Jama Lipovača Pit, Jasmina Ploskić story)

Lesson twenty one. If you actually are able to escape to safety, do not be lured back by extremists to your house under the pretense that “everything’s going to be fine,” and that you’re not going to be harmed. Usually what this meant in Bosnia is that they wanted people back so they can rob them of their valuables, and then rape, murder, torture and/or displace them. Meaning they wanted to enact their sick fantasies on people. Unfortunately, a particularly egregious example of this was when a lot of the civilians of the town of Višegrad went to safety to the town of Goražde, and then they were lured back under the pretenses that unless they come back, they’re going to lose their jobs. Of course, they were never going to get their jobs back, but people actually believed that they had to go back, and then things are going to be normal again. Well, when they went back, women were put into rape camps. Men were murdered. People were taken onto bridges, their throats cut, and thrown into the river Drina. So, in other words, when you’re somewhere safe, do not go back where you came from. (see: Višegrad civilian return in 1992, Mujo Ćupina story in Nevesinje in 1991)

Lesson twenty two. If dehumanizing propaganda is being run against a group, that group should assume that it’ll escalate to genocide. So for example, Serb propaganda in Prijedor was spreading rumors that Bosnian doctors were forcibly aborting Serb women’s babies. There was no proof of that, but that was one of the propaganda points they were pushing. They also said the Muslim mujahedin green berets were getting ready to attack everybody, to rape all the women, to torture all the men. Turns out that’s exactly what Serb extremists wanted to do. So in other words, Serb extremist propaganda was always: every accusation is a confession. Everything that Serb extremists were planning to do, they accused of the other side of planning to do. (see: Belgrade TV saying Bosniaks feeding Serbs to lions at Sarajevo Zoo, rhetoric of Serb extremist politicians like Radovan Karadžić, Vojislav Šešelj before and during genocide)

Lesson twenty three. If you are being threatened publicly with something like annihilation, like for example, when Karadžić, who is the political leader of the Bosnian Serb extremists, came on television and actually said if the country votes to secede from Yugoslavia, this will lead to death of all Muslims. Well, at that time, a lot of people didn’t believe him. They should have believed him because if they believed him and knew this was coming, then measures would have been taken to make this a lot harder to pull off for Serb extremists. They would not have allowed them to park tanks and other weaponry around town at ease. They would not have allowed them to set up barricades in order to block the freedom of movement. So, if somebody’s threatening you, either take measures to evacuate, or be ready for them, so when they come, they pay a heavy price for trying to pull off a genocide. (see: Radovan Kraadžić 1991 Parliament speech, Ratko Mladić statements before genocide in Srebrenica)

Lesson twenty four. Bluffing a threat is better than not being threatening at all. So, for example, in a town of Višegrad, there was a guy called Murat Šabanović, and he took over (with a group of men) the local dam on the river Drina, and then he proceeded to threaten to blow it up. He actually didn’t have any explosive. He had no means of blowing it up, but the fact that he threatened it caused panic. So, that bluff may have actually bought some time for civilians to be able to run up into the forests and the mountains, and avoid genocide. So therefore, bluffing is better than non-bluffing. If you can do anything to disrupt a genocide, do it, because it may buy you or somebody else some time to run away.

Lesson twenty five. If extremists have the means to come and kill you, but they’re calling you for negotiations, immediately assume you’re still going to be killed. The reason why people call for negotiations is to appear less threatening, in order for you to let your guard down, and then suddenly genocide unfolds. Ratko Mladić called for negotiations with Bosniaks before the massacres in Srebrenica, and we know how that turned out. In the case of Žepa, however, when they called for negotiations, the head of defense of that town, a guy called Avdo Palić did something very smart, he used that opportunity to tell the people in the town: as soon as I step out to go negotiate, you run. This was because he knew he was sacrificing himself, and was maybe buying the time for rest of the town to run.

Lesson twenty six. Don’t assume that your enemy is not afraid of you, even if the odds are long. So, for example, in Ključ area, there were 125 territorial defense Bosniak soldiers who were pinned against the Sana River by around 3,000 Serbian forces. And then their leader, Amir Avdić, did a very key thing, he said, “You know what? We’re pinned down here. Let’s just attack them. Let’s go up the hill and smash right into them,” despite being way outnumbered. Well, this was a fantastic idea because when they went up there, Serbs were shocked that they were coming up, as they expected these guys to surrender. So when they came up that hill, they in fact not only beat the Serb unit, they took them hostage, and then used them as negotiation tool to get themselves out of that area to safety in Bihać. Serb extremists were only tough guys when they were up against children and women, and were raping and murdering defenseless civilians. But when they were up against somebody who had a gun, and that somebody punched them in the mouth, they folded.

Lesson twenty seven. Don’t assume that women are not capable of some of the worst evils, just like men are. In case of Brčko in a Luka concentration camp, Monika Karan-Ilić, who was the girlfriend of the camp commander Goran Jelisić, did things like: stabbed men with broken bottles and ripped their stomachs apart. She sexually assaulted and castrated men. She poured acid on men. In the case of Jadranka Ždralo, she sexually assaulted and abused women that were being raped by other men. She was organizing the rapes and then hitting women and holding them down while they were being raped. So in other words, women are absolutely capable of evils. Seeing one in an extremist unit and thinking she’s going to be nicer to me, or maybe she’ll help me, is probably not going to happen. Most of those who made that assumption, and appealed to women inside those Serb extremist units for help, ended up dying. (see also: Dragana Ðekic role in Skočić and Štrpci massacres, Serb civilian women abusing and degrading Bosniaks imprisoned in Zijemlje and Kotlovnica in Nevesinje)

Lesson twenty eight. Sometimes defying the orders to stop a military operation is better than actually following through on those orders. Like in the case of Sana 95 attack by the fifth core of the Bosnian army, they had an opportunity to liberate the towns of Prijedor and Banja Luka, but they stopped because they were under threat. They should not have stopped. Most of them now agree, 30 years later, that they should have just kept going, and suffered any kind of consequences that would have come of that.

Lesson twenty nine. Sometimes swimming into another country is better than trying to reach safe areas of your own. In the cases of Srebrenica and Žepa, some people that decided to swim across river Drina into Serbia were saved by doing so. Whereas the others which ran the other way, and tried to make their way through the mountains, were killed.

Lesson thirty. If camouflaged and masked men enter your bus, or enter your train, or any transport for that matter, and say, “We’re taking these people off,” assume that those people are being taken for torture, rape, and murder. In the case of Štrpci and Sjeverin massacres where masked men appeared on a train, and a masked man appeared on a bus, everybody was very compliant. But, if they tried to overpower those extremists that came to pick them up, they may have had a chance. However, because they complied, they went straight to their deaths.

So there you go. That was 15 lessons of Bosian genocide part two. So try to remember these things and if God forbid time comes for you to use the knowledge, be brave.

Note: this is part of The Acts of Reburial, a Bosnian Genocide education project. We do not have institutional backing and support, so the videos are fully dependent on your donations. Please consider making one at http://www.theactsofreburial.com or via a paid subscription to this channel. Thank you.