Srebrenica survivor brings bones, and peace, to families

For years, farmer has combed site of 1995 massacre for remains, which then undergo DNA testing

SREBRENICA, BOSNIA— Day after day, Ramiz Nukic goes into the woods around Srebrenica in search of a tragic quarry: human bones.

There’s rarely a day in which he does not find the remains of at least one murdered boy or man, even 20 years after Europe’s worst massacre since the Second World War. Srebrenica’s killing fields swallowed 8,000 bodies and the murderers took pains to hide evidence.

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. Every day he kept trying, and quietly he built up an astonishing record: Nukic’s discoveries have allowed Bosnia’s Institute for Missing Persons to identify nearly 300 Srebrenica victims. But his father and brother eluded him. Srebrenica was a Muslim town besieged by Serb forces in Bosnia’s 1992-95 ethnic war, in which Serbs tried to wrest away territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form their own state. Serb troops led by Gen. Ratko Mladic — on trial in The Hague on genocide charges — overran the enclave in July 1995 and some 15,000 Srebrenica men fled into the mountains.

The rest of the population, some 25,000 people, sought protection from Dutch UN peacekeepers. But the outnumbered Blue Helmets could only watch as Serb troops occupied their base and separated men and boys from women, and loaded the males on buses and trucks. They executed some 2,000 men and boys on July 11, 1995. Then they hunted down another 6,000 who had fled into the forests.

Over 7,000 bodies of victims have been found in 93 mass graves and 314 surface

“I feel bad when I don’t find a bone. I’m happy when I do. Because one family will find closure.” RAMIZ NUKIC

sites throughout northeastern Bosnia. Another 1,000 people are still missing.

As the massacre unfolded, Nukic said goodbye to his wife and children in front of the UN base, and disappeared into the woods with his father and brother, joining other fleeing Srebrenica men.

But the Serbs set ambushes along their path. As the Bosnian Muslim men sat down to rest on a hill just above Nukic’s village, Serb guns and tanks suddenly fired on the group. About a thousand were killed on the spot — including Nukic’s father and brother. Nukic survived because he hid in the ferns until the shooting was over.

Nukic returned to his empty village of Kamenice in1999 and gathered the courage to climb 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, I went numb.”

From then on, Nukic searched the woods every day, overturning branches and leaves,

hoping to find his father and brother. But there was no way to tell who he found.

“A bone is a bone,” he said. “You do not know who it belongs to.”

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 empty-handed,” he said. He is not allowed to actually touch the bones as it’s considered a crime scene.

“I feel bad when I don’t find a bone,” said Nukic, a farmer. “I’m happy when I do. Because one family will find closure.”

This year, his dream of tracking down his father and brother came true — others identified their partial remains found in a mass grave.

“It feels good, although (my father) is not complete. I will bury him, and I will know where his grave is,” Nukic said

But his mission is not over. He intends to keep hunting for bones for the rest of his life.