Srebrenica: ten years on by Ed Vulliarmy tells of his visit to the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia, where eight thousand Muslim men were killed in July 1995. Though many stories are told, gruesome stories of massacres, mass graves, and the desperation of those who survived, what I found most important in the story was the thread of hope apparent in many of those interviewed. Sabaheta Fezic, who lost both her husband and her son, says that she tried to commit suicide after her son was taken, but says "thank God I did not succeed" (5). She spends her days now meeting with other women who have lost the men in their lives, and searching for information on her still missing son. A women named Sija says that "If I cry, I would die of heartbreak, so I don't." (7) Hurtic sums it up perfectly: "we live strange lives... traumatic, but we do it. Because we have to." (11)
This is my favorite part about this article- while Vulliarmy clearly illustrates the horrors of what happened, the focus of the article is not on pointing blame or simply relating the facts of what happened, but on finding hope amidst all the suffering and death that the massacre left behind. What matters now that the dead are dead and survivors have survived is actively working towards rebuilding- identifying bodies, moving Muslims back into Serbian neighborhoods, and educating the public so that future generations will know what happened, and know "that this should never happen again." (13)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Opab3PY30
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