They say that you could have been fathers now and grandfathers. Your wives, sisters, daughters and sons miss you still, and forever will. You are also denied peace, because there are those in Bosnia who will not admit that you existed or that you died the death that you died. Your memories are used for both unity and division among us who remain living and remember the day twenty-one years ago when the word genocide was forever etched in the history of our poor battered country of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
I look at my two boys and understand the pain that the mothers who lost their teenage sons are feeling. This pain that lives inside you and never leaves you, the pain of loosing an organ, body never healing, never whole again.
I think about people who happily ignore that just a stone throw from their house lies a town that lost its future in a few days that now seem like eternity.
In memory of Srebrenica genocide I don't have any grand gestures, I do not have any wise words or descriptions of the events that transpired then. I don't remember the dates anymore, all I remember are the lost feelings of a teenage girl, asking herself if she was living in the hell and if the devil would come soon to claim her.
All I have is a story that I imaged from the stories about Srebrenica I read. I imagine, because that is how I feel. This is a story about Hamida, who lost her father, two brothers in Srebrenica. Hamida is not real, but her story is real, because there is somewhere a young woman from Srebrenica who lost her father and two brothers. There is a young woman whose life was interrupted in the most brutal way possible.
Hamida's story can be found here. http://www.worldaccordingtoblam.com/blog/2016/4/5/in-memory-of-srebrenica This is my tribute to Srebrenica.
Rest in peace Srebrenica, rest in peace men and boys who will never be fathers and grandfathers. World is not a better place now. I wish I could tell you it was. I hope that it will be though, someday, and that you would not have died in vain.