Six Bosnian war victims buried in Vlasenica, including two still unidentified

The burial took place at the Rakita memorial cemetery, where funeral prayers were led by Tuzla Mufti Vahid-ef. Fazlović after noon prayers. The victims were from the areas of Vlasenica, Srebrenica and Donja Kamenica, regions heavily affected by wartime atrocities against Bosniaks.

The two unidentified victims, buried under the designation NN, were exhumed from the Drum site near Vlasenica and Tabine Njive near Kladanj. Although DNA analysis could not confirm their identities, authorities believe they were from the Vlasenica area. With the approval of Bosnia’s prosecutor’s office and the Islamic Community, they were buried alongside the identified victims.

Among those buried was Ahmet Music, born in 1939, who disappeared after the fall of Srebrenica in 1995. His remains were found in a mass grave near Zvornik in 1998, but his family delayed burial for years because the remains were incomplete.

Also buried were Haso Imsirovic (born 1946), who disappeared in Donja Kamenica in 1995, and Ibro Durmic (born 1961) and Lutvo Kucic (born 1954), both from Vlasenica, who disappeared in 1992. The remains of Durmic and Kucic were exhumed in August 2025 from the Jelovacki Potok site.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mufti Fazlovic said the search for the missing from Vlasenica is still far from over and called on institutions to continue efforts to locate and identify all victims.

Bosnia’s Federal Minister for Refugees and Displaced Persons, Nerin Dizdar, said the Podrinje region still hides thousands of genocide victims, urging anyone with information to reveal the locations of hidden graves.

According to the Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1,350 victims from the Vlasenica area have so far been identified and buried. Of those, 830 were killed in the 1995 genocide, while 537 were killed in 1992.

Exhumations have been carried out at 200 locations, and 23 mass graves have been uncovered. The institute says it is still searching for 363 missing people from the Vlasenica area.