Hajrudin Mesic, a professor at the Gazi Husrev-beg Madrasa, is one of the few who managed to escape from Srebrenica to free territory. Sadly, his brothers were not as fortunate. Mesic shared with N1 his experiences of reaching the territory under the control of the Army of RBiH and what he witnessed along the way.

When he set out with his brothers, he recalled the ensuing chaos as members of the Army of Republika Srpska infiltrated the crowd.

“I think one member of the RS Army made their objective very clear. They entered our mass, surrounded us, and one of the RS Army members put a bayonet to a Bosniak's throat and said, ‘We didn’t come here to negotiate with you, we came to finish you off once and for all,” he recalled.

Mesic's journey to the free territory controlled by the Army of RBiH was arduous, and he lost contact with his brothers amidst the chaos.

“I crossed the main road and through Nova Kasaba and Sosara, approaching a Serb village, and luckily, I knew the area. There were ambushes and killings everywhere. I crossed to Brezika near Kalesija, and out of the 12 of us trying to cross, three were killed, one was wounded and did not survive,” he said.

As a professor, Mesic finds it inconceivable that the perpetrators of these crimes were themselves educators, committing atrocities within educational institutions.

“The most common sites of rape, murder, and abuse were schools, cultural centers, and gyms. Schools are the greatest achievements of modern civilization. You can imagine what kind of monsters these people were,” Mesic said.