Bosnia’s bone hunter gives solace to the families of genocide victims
SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina: Day after day, Ramiz Nukic goes into the woods around Srebrenica in search of a tragic quarry – human bones.
There’s rarely a day when he does not find the remains of at least one murdered boy or man, even 20 years after Europe’s worst massacre since World War II. Srebrenica’s killing fields swallowed 8 000 bodies and the murderers took pains to hide evidence of the genocide.
Nukic’s quest started in 1999 after he returned to his empty hometown of Kamenice and began looking for the remains of his murdered father and younger brother. As the family’s only male massacre survivor, he became obsessed with bringing closure to their loss.
Every day he discovered bones that gave other families the gift of mourning, but not his own. He kept trying, and quietly he built up an astonishing record – Nukic’s discoveries have allowed Bosnia’s Institute Missing Persons to identify nearly 300 Srebrenica victims.
Srebrenica was a Muslim town besieged by Serb forces in Bosnia’s 1992-95 ethnic war.
Serb troops led by General Ratko Mladic – on trial in The Hague on genocide charges – overran the enclave in July 1995 and about 15 000 men fled into the mountains.
They slaughtered 2 000 men and boys on July 11, 1995. Then they hunted down and killed 6 000 more who had fled. More than 7 000 bodies of victims have been found in 93 mass graves and 314 surface sites in north-eastern Bosnia. Another 1 000 people are still missing.
As the massacre unfolded, Nukic said goodbye to his wife and children and disappeared into the woods with his father and brother. But as the Bosnian Muslim men sat down to rest near Nukic’s village, Serbs fired on the group. About a thousand were killed – including Nukic’s father and brother. Nukic managed to sneak away and eventually find his wife and children in a refugee camp.
Nukic returned to Kamenice in 1999 and gathered courage to climb up the hill where his loved ones died. The sight that greeted him froze his blood.
“When I saw those clothes and shoes scattered around the site,” he said, “I went numb.”
At his feet, he found three complete skeletons. From then on, Nukic searched the woods every day, hoping to find the remains of his father and brother.
Each time he discovered bones he contacted the Institute for Missing Persons, which took away the remains to identify through DNA analysis.
“I rarely return home emptyhanded,” he said as he sat on a tree stump next to his latest find. He is not allowed to touch the bones. It’s a crime scene.
“Nukic’s help has no price,” institute representative Sadik Selimovic said. “Thanks to him, many bones got their names.”
This year, Nukic’s dream came true but he wasn’t the one who made the discovery – the remains of his father and brother were found in a mass grave. He will bury his father next Saturday. “It feels good... I will bury him and I will know where his grave is,” Nukic said.
His mission is not over. Nukic intends to keep hunting for bones to the end of his life. – AP