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Hajra Salihovic from the Bratunac settlement of Biljaca will bury one of her sons at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial cemetery, on July 11. Anadolu Agency paid her a visit and heard her story.
Her husband died in 1992 in Bratunac, two of her sons – Nevres and Sead, disappeared in the woods after the fall of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995. The third son, Samed, was wounded and survived, and the fourth, Samir, was killed on the bridge over the Drina River.
She welcomed the Anadolu agency team at her home which was built with the help of donations. She welcomes all guests with open arms and tells them her sad story. After waiting for 29 years, this 77-year-old mother from Srebrenica will bury the remains of one of her sons, Nevres. She is still looking for the others. Her wish is to find and bury them all so that they can have a grave while she is alive.
“I had four sons and a daughter. The daughter and one of the sons survived,” Hajra said.
At the beginning of the war, in May 1992, they had to leave their house in the village near Bratunac.
“We fled to the villages in the hills. We were there for about a month, and then we went over the hill to Srebrenica. We stayed in Srebrenica until the fall. My sons were with me, and my husband died in a village in 1992,” said Hajra.
She went to Potocari with her daughter-in-law, the wife of Samed, and her granddaughter, from where they crossed to the free territory in buses.
The sons went across the forest with thousands of other men and boys.
“Our children went through the forest but none came back. Now we found Nevres. Of the three sons [who went to the free territory], only Samed got there. Nevres was 25 years old when he was killed, Samir was 22, and Sead was 21. While Nevres, Sead and Samed were going through the forest, Samir was still working in Belgrade. When the situation became unbearable he and other Bosnian workers wanted to return knowing what was happening. One morning the workers decided to return and their bus was full. But later we heard that everyone from the bus was killed on the bridge,” Hajra said.
Samed identified his brother Nevres
“They say he only has a head and two, three bones, whether from an arm or a leg. They say that if they find anything else, they will add it to the body. I'm glad they found anything. I waited so many years. I also have a sister-in-law who had a son, he too was never found”, Hajra tearfully told Anadolu Agency.
They were killed at the start of their lives. They weren't even married.
“Nevres was good. He finished school, served in the army, and just returned. He just started living. They were gone the moment they were supposed to live their best life. They grew up in an apartment in Srebrenica. We saw them off in the morning, and they left. We left with the bus,” said Hajra.
She hoped that her sons would appear in those first months after the fall of Srebrenica.
“For a while, I hoped that they were alive, but when I saw that they had been gone for so many years, I knew that they had been killed. This July is tough. The war took everything away from me, only Samed and my daughter remained. I know how to endure this sadness. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about them and that I do not cry. I look at their pictures and cry,” said Hajra.
This Srebrenica mother returned to her pre-war home. She told Anadolu Agency that she wants to spend the rest of her life in her village. The Memorial Center is also nearby, so now they will have the opportunity to visit her son's grave and pray for him.
This year, the remains of 14 victims of the genocide committed against the inhabitants of the “UN-protected zone” in Srebrenica will be buried in the Memorial Centre's cemetery.
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