Reliving History: How the Srebrenica genocide unfolded 30 years ago today

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Nedzad Avdic lost sight of his father during a stampede in the village of Susnjari as they tried to flee Srebrenica. The next day, as the 17-year-old walked alongside thousands of unarmed Bosniaks, the shelling grew more intense and the shots became more accurate.

"Men, teenagers, even little boys, [were] crying in pain, wounded and left behind, begging for help. But no one could help them," he said. "I wasn't even afraid of dying. What I feared was the suffering."

A rumour that Bosnian Serb forces had released poisonous gases into the air spread among the crowd, and people started running. "There were people who, in all that chaos, lost their minds. They started hallucinating — they just couldn't take the terror," Avdic said.

On July 13, after two days spent hiding and moving through dense forest, they were ambushed. The Bosnian Serb forces used megaphones, urging them to surrender and promising them they wouldn't be killed. At first, it seemed they would keep their word. "And then it start[ed]. The torture. The beatings. They demanded money. They cursed our mothers. They beat people," Avdic said.

They were ordered to lie facedown, place their hands behind their heads and applaud. "All of us, together, as hard as we could. We spent two to three hours doing that," he recounted. By the time they were told to stop, the wounded had died. "They ordered us to shout slogans — long live the country, long live the king, long live Serbia! We had to shout in unison, all of us, like a choir," he said. Some were taken to a warehouse in Kravica and killed.

Those who were still alive by the evening were led onto a truck and taken to Bratunac and then to a school in Petkovici the next day. There, Avdic recognised one of his cousins among the bodies on the ground. "He was still giving signs of life, but he couldn't catch breath, and he didn't make it," he said.

The classrooms had been emptied of desks and chairs and crammed so full of people that Avdic had a hard time breathing. As they gasped for air, they were made to repeat in unison: "This is Serbian land, it always was and always will be."

In the early 2000s, Avdic testified at The Hague during the trials of those charged with committing genocide in Srebrenica. He later co-authored a book with his sister entitled I Witness in The Hague.

Avdic lost his father, three uncles, three cousins, and many others during the genocide. Bosnian Serb soldiers confiscated all of his family photographs.

Today Avdic lives in Srebrenica.

Emir Bektic was 16 years old when he and his father were forced to leave their home in Bektici. They headed north towards Tuzla, accompanied by the constant sound of gunfire and shelling.

On the journey, he "saw people lying motionless – killed," he said. "It was the first time in my life that I had seen dead bodies."

As they stopped to rest for the night, bullets sliced through the treetops above their heads. "We heard explosions – grenades, screaming, the cries of people. I ducked behind a beech tree," he said.

The chaos lasted for maybe half an hour, Bektic added, "but to me, it felt like an eternity."

They trekked through thick forest, looking for a place to hide. But Bosnian Serb soldiers approached from behind and ordered them to climb a small hill, along with 15 to 20 others.

"You are prisoners," they were told as they reached the top. One soldier suggested that they be killed "right here," while another said he'd take them down to the stream and "slaughter them there."

His father attempted to reassure Bektic, who hadn't slept for two nights and was exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. "No matter what happens, we'll stay together," he said.

The last thing Bektic remembers is his father's embrace. He woke up on the morning of July 13 alone in the forest near Kamenicko Brdo. As he frantically searched for his father, he found dozens of lifeless bodies.

A military dog — a German Shepherd — approached him, but turned and walked away without barking. Nearby, was a group of Bosnian Serb soldiers. "I realised that if the dog had barked, they would have opened fire — and I would have had almost no chance of surviving," he said.

After walking a few kilometres, Bektic found his uncle and cousins. As they continued on together, they saw something they could never have imagined – an "entire space ... covered with murdered people".

"The stench from the corpses was overwhelming," he said. "The sight was horrific — something [that stays] burned into your memory."

Bektic lost 10 members of his family, including his father, uncle, and two cousins. Today, he lives in Sarajevo and is the author of A Dawn Alone.

The group eventually made it to Tuzla, where Malcinovic was reunited with his wife and newborn baby. In time, the couple had another daughter.

Like other refugees, the family survived on humanitarian assistance. His wife died three years ago, and his older daughter married and moved to Switzerland.

Malcinovic now lives with his second daughter in Vlasenica. She says he still talks in his sleep – a result of the trauma he endured during the genocide.

Ibrahimovic was 20 years old when he joined a group of men from Srebrenica who were trying to make their way to the Bosnian army-controlled town of Tuzla in the north.

As the group approached Zepa from the forest, they saw Bosnian Serb forces attacking the village. They changed course and headed to the town of Vlasenica, only to find that that, too, had been attacked.

The terrain was littered with bodies. Ibrahimovic describes "the smell of meat" that came from them in the heat. He had "to access this sixth sense of survival," he says, in order to continue his journey and to cast away the mental image of his own body among the dead.

Today, Ibrahimovic lives in Pubode with his wife. He is one of the organizers of the Peace March, an annual three-day walk held before the July 11 anniversary that traces the path of those who tried to escape through the forests. The walk begins in the village of Nezuk and ends in Potocari, where the Srebrenica Memorial Center is located – and where the remains of newly-found victims continue to be buried.

For most of the journey from Potocari to Tuzla, Halilovic's mother kept his eyes covered so he wouldn't see what was happening around him.

When they later spotted the name of his father on a list of the dead compiled by the Red Cross, the seven-year-old felt like his world had crumbled. They had last seen him three days earlier as Bosnian Serb forces advanced towards Srebrenica.

But at that time, Halilovic's father was spending what would stretch into 42 days in the woods. At the end of it, he and Halilovic's brother reached the Bosniak-controlled village of Kladanj. They were completely emaciated, "skin and bones", Halilovic said, but his father was alive. The name on the list had been a case of mistaken identity. His uncle, however, never made it back.

The family eventually returned to their home in Kaldrmica, where Halilovic lives to this day. His parents have passed away, and his brother lives in Srebrenik with his own family. Halilovic is married and has three children.

Advic and her children were sent to Huskic, a neighborhood near Tuzla.

She waited there for news of her husband. He did not make it out of Srebrenica.

Today, aged 68, she lives outside Sarajevo.

"In the beginning, we truly believed [the men] would return," she explained.

"[But] time passed, and there was nothing.

"It is hard when you had everything, and then suddenly, you have nothing."

Advic's husband's remains were found in 2006. He is now buried in the Srebrenica Memorial Centre in Potocari.

Hrustanovic still remembers his father pushing him onto a UN truck headed for Tuzla in 1993. Both of them broke down, pulling their hair.

He never saw his father again.

As the first survivors arrived in Tuzla in July 1995, Hrustanovic learned that his father had been captured when he refused to leave his injured brother. The two men were executed in Kravica.

More than 50 adult male members of Hrustanovic's family, including his two grandfathers and four uncles, were killed there.

Today, Hrustanovic, 38, serves as the imam of the Casijska Mosque in Srebrenica, where he has lived with his wife and children since relocating there in 2014 in search of peace.

He still holds on to his father's handwritten letters and remembers Srebrenica as a place where his family once lived happily together.

After walking for hours, Mehmedovic was looking for a companion when he found a frightened 15-year-old, ​​Basic.

The will "not to die" was his "only motive". Desperate, Mehmedovic spent days going through the backpacks of dead fellow Bosniaks, looking for something to survive on. There was no way to recognize if they were friends or relatives, he said. Hundreds of bodies were rotting in the heat.

"I only had faith in God all the time," he said.

Today, aged 63, Mehmedovic lives with his wife, children and grandchildren in Berlin, Germany, where he owns a bookstore.

Mehmedovic's three brothers and 27 other relatives died in the Srebrenica genocide. At night, he said, he is still haunted by the cries of the wounded men and boys in the forests near Srebrenica during the "death march".

"I just want to say to the world: 'Srebrenica, never again.'"