I realised shot the
SURVIVOR RELIVES HIS Dad on how he survived killing fields of Bosnia
Peter Geoghegan At just 17, Nedžad Avdic was convinced his life was over.
After days walking barefoot, starving, thirsty and exhausted through the Bosnian countryside near Srebrenica, he was captured by Bosnian Serb forces and loaded on to one lorry in a convoy which held thousands of other Muslims. The trucks stopped in a remote field and Nedžad was told to get in line. He knew that the killing was about to start.
Nedžad, now 38 with a young family of his own, recalls the horror as the 21st anniversary of the massacre approaches.
He said: “We were forced to take off our clothes. One of the soldiers tied our hands in the back.
“At that moment, I – a 17-year-old boy – realised it was the end.
“I thought that I would die fast without suffering.
“Thinking that my mum would never know where I f inished, they began to shoot us in our backs.
“I did not know whether I lost consciousness but I lay on my stomach, bleeding and trembling.”
Miraculously, it was not the end for Nedžad. Despite being shot in the arm and the stomach, he clung to life and hid among the rows of dead bodies – one of only 11 men to survive.
Nedžad said: “I was left for dead but the soldiers did not know it.
“They were shooting the other wounded. I wanted to die but did not
They began to shoot us in the back. My mum would not know where I died
dare to call them to kill me. I was bleeding and waiting to die.
“When Serb soldiers left the field for a short time, I turned my head and I could see somebody moving among the dead in front of me.
“Two of us survived and managed to untie each other and to run away, crawling and hiding in bushes before the next lorry arrived.”
After days of wandering through the woods, hiding in the streams and