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Home Primary Survivor Stories The Courage to Speak Out: Hasan Nuhanović

The Courage to Speak Out: Hasan Nuhanović

Hasan Nuhanović was a translator for the UN when Serb forces took Srebrenica in July 1995. Forced to translate the order to send his family away, he never saw them again. He has dedicated his life to seeking truth and justice.

I come  from  Vlasenica,  a  little  town  in  Eastern  Bosnia,  near  Srebrenica.  When  the  war  broke  out,  I  was  in  my  fourth  year  in  Sarajevo,  studying  mechanical  engineering.  Many  people  were  talking  about  leaving  the  country,  but  it  was  not  an  option  for  my  parents.  My  brother  was  17  and  still  at  school.  My  father  Ibro  was  managing  a  company  of  500  employees  in  Vlasenica,  half  of  them  Serb.  When  I  told  him  we  had  to  prepare  for  war  and  suggested  leaving  the  country  he  said:  “No,  I  have  to  look  after  my  employees”.  Most  people  were  a  bit  naïve,  and    thought  everything  would  be  resolved  in  a  few  weeks.  When  we  finally  decided  to  leave  Bosnia,  it  was  too  late  to  get  out.  By  April  1992,  we  feared  for  our  lives.

On  live  TV,  we  saw  the  aftermath  of  the  massacre  in  Bijeljina  by  Arkan,  the  notorious  Serb  commander.  On  the  6th  or  7th  of  April,  we  had  driven  to  Zvornik  and  my  father’s  car  was  the  only  car  on  the  road.  The  day  after  we  left,  we  heard  about  the  horrific  massacre  in  Zvornik.  I  told  my  father  to  drive  to  Sarajevo.  I  thought  that  being  in  the  capital  would  provide  us  with  some  protection.  The  CNN  and  the  BBC  were  in  Sarajevo.  The  world  was  watching.  But  a  Serb  colleague  of  my  father’s  told  him  “Ibro,  don’t  take  your  family  to  Sarajevo.  Sarajevo  will  be  erased  from  the  ground.”  So  my  father  said  we  should  go  to  the  mountains,  to  the  village  where  he  was  born.

The  Serb  attack  came  in  June:  my  first  experience  of  war.  It  was  horrible.  Military  aircraft  from  Serbia  bombed  the  villages  and  went  back  to  Serbia  to  reload.  You  couldn’t  see  the  jets,  they  were  too  fast,  but  you  could  hear  them.  It  was  hell  on  earth  for  a  few  days,  but  we  were  protected  by  the  deep  forest.  They  couldn’t  see  us.

The  year  April  1992  to  April  1993  was  the  worst  experience  of  our  lives.

Worse  than  July  1995,  even  though  that  is  when  my  family  was  killed.  The  suffering  was  extreme.  We  were  stuck  in  the  mountains,  with  no  food,  starving.  We  moved  to  those  villages  that  were  able  to  defend  themselves,  and  decided  to  move  towards  Srebrenica  in  September  1992.  We  couldn’t  go  by  road,  so  we  had  to  climb  down  steep  cliffs  at  night,  then  go  downriver  by  boat.  When  dawn  came,  the  shelling  started  again  from  Serbia,  but  somehow  we  survived,  walking  to  Srebrenica  on  foot.  But  when  we  arrived,  we  realised  we  were  stuck  again.  Srebrenica  was  besieged.  They  were  bombing  the  town—by  artillery,  from  the  air—for  six  months.  People  would  go  to  their  burned,  destroyed  villages  and  take  cattle  food  out of  their  silos  to  eat.  We  were  starving.  Even  though  the  Srebrenica  fighters  were  trying  to  hold  Serb  forces  back  from  the  town,  by  March  1993  it  became  clear  that  they  could  no  longer  hold  the  lines.

On  the  very  day  that  we  thought  the  Serbs  would  take  the  town  and  massacre  us  all,  we  heard  on  the  radio  that  the  UN  Security  Council  had  declared  Srebrenica  a  safe  area.

We  didn’t  know  what  a  UN  safe  area  meant,  but  the  word  “safe”  sounded  promising.

The  next  day,  when  the  Canadians  arrived,  was  the  first  day  in  a  year  that  people  dared  to  walk  out  in  the  street.  I  had  tears  in  my  eyes,  we  all  did.  We  loved  the  Canadians.  We  loved  the  UN.  And  we  thought:  maybe,  we  are  not  going  to  die.

The  UN’s  arrival  froze  the  genocide  that  was  taking  place  against  the  Bosniak  people.  We  knew  that  if  the  Serbs  attacked  Srebrenica  again,  and  the  UN  didn’t  stop  them,  there  would  undoubtedly  be  another  massacre.  When  the  UN  called  for  NATO  air  strikes  to  stop  the  attack  on  the  “safe  area”  of  Gorazde  in  1994,  we  thought  the  UN  would  do  the  same  if  anything  happened  in  Srebrenica.  That  is  why,  when  July  1995  came,  everyone  expected  to  hear  the  sound  of  NATO  jets  until  the  moment  when  the  town  finally  fell.

The  attack  started  on  6  July.  I’d  been  translating  for  the  UN,  but  had  promised  my  parents  I  would  collect  my  brother  if  it  looked  like  the  town  would  fall,  so  I  went  under  heavy  fire  to  fetch  him.  He  was  the  first  civilian  inside  the  UN  base  at  Potočari.  My  parents  arrived  with  the  big  crowd  of  older  men,  women  and  children  that  came  to  the  base  when  the  town  fell.  They  were  some  of  the  first  to  arrive  so  they  managed  to  get  inside  the  base.  25,000  others  were  not  so  lucky,  and  were  left  outside  when  the  Dutch  closed  the  gates.

When  the  Serbs  arrived  on  12  July,  they  separated  all  the  men  and  boys  from  outside  the  base,  and  deported  all  the  women  and  girls,  but  they  did  not  enter  the  base  itself.

I  thought  we  would  be  safe  inside,  but  then  the  Dutch  soldiers  told  those  inside  the  base  to  get  out.  Under  the  UN  flag,  5,000  refugees  were  marched  to  the  gate  one  by  one,  where  the  Serbs  took  the  men  and  boys  to  their  deaths.

My  family  was  one  of  the  last  to  leave.  The  Dutch  told  me:  “Tell  your  family  to  leave.  They  can’t  stay  here  anymore.”  I  never  saw  them  again.

From  that  day  until  today,  23  years  later,  I  have  needed  to  find  out  what  happened  to  my  family,  and  to  the  other  people  who  were  missing.  At  first  I  wasn’t  even  thinking  about  justice.  I  just  wanted  to  find  out  what  happened.  I  was  begging  the  government  of  the  Netherlands  to  tell  me,  and  to  start  an  investigation  into  those  who  had  made  the  decision  to  turn  the  refugees  out  at  Potočari,  but  they  wouldn’t  engage  with  me.  They  said  I  was  too  emotional,  too  loud.  Then  finally  a Dutch  lawyer  came  to  me  and  said  “I’ll  represent  you”.  We  didn’t  expect  to  win,  but  I  wanted  to  get  to  truth.  We  couldn’t  establish  the  truth  any  other  way,  so  we  would  try  and  do  it  in  the  courtroom.

It  took  ten  years,  and  so  many  obstacles  to  get  to  the  final  judgement  that  we  both  nearly  gave  up,  but  we  never  did.

The  final  verdict,  from  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  Netherlands,  was  all  in  Dutch  but  I  remember  looking  over  at  the  lawyer  and  she  was  smiling.  It  was  the  first  time  ever  that  a  government  had  been  found  liable  for  its  troops  on  a  UN  mission.  I  didn’t  feel  victory,  or  even  satisfaction.  I  just  felt  relieved  that  this  fight  was  over.  I  was  thinking  about  my  parents,  and  my  brother.  I  was  doing  this  for  them.  What  else  could  I  have  done?

My  father  was  identified  ten  years  after  he  was  killed  in  the  genocide.  Like  most  victims,  he  was  identified  by  the  International  Commission  for  Missing  Persons  using  DNA.  My  brother  and  mother  were  identified  after  fifteen  years.  All  three  of  them  are  buried  in  the  graveyard  at  Potočari.

I’ve  had  to  fight  so  long  and  so  hard  just  to  find  out  what  happened,  who  was  responsible,  even  to  establish  the  Memorial  Centre  where  they  are  buried.  Even  after  23  years,  our  story  is  still  not  finished.

Jun 8, 2018Amil Khan
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June 8, 2018 Survivor StoriesDutch, hasan nuhanovic, justice, Srebrenica, survivor stories, UN
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