A Reminder of the Srebrenica Genocide
Srebrenica is not just a reminder of the Balkans’ recent bloodshed, but also a barometer of how much progress, or lack thereof, has been accomplished since the guns went quiet and the Dayton Peace Accord was signed 10 years ago this November. The village still bears the impression of a damaged ghost town, with a small strip of buildings running down the valley floor and bordered by blood-soaked hills. Over 6,000 structures were destroyed in the municipality, and many are still in ruins.
Security has improved, but it remains precarious. A considerable amount of explosives and detonators were discovered at the burial site just days before the formal ceremony. Srebrenica had 37,000 residents before the conflict, with 73 percent of them Bosniaks and 23 percent ethnic Serbs. Today, 6,000 Serbs and 4,000 Muslims dwell there, demonstrating a considerable decline in the overall population as well as a major change in the ethnic mix. Since then, the rate of return to Srebrenica and throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina has increased. Despite difficulties and an uncertain future, Janz maintains that “what transpired in Bosnia and Srebrenica is a minor miracle in many respects.”
Following a conflict in which at least 200,000 people were killed, 2.2 million were displaced, and an entire community was badly traumatized, “almost 1 million people in Bosnia have returned home in the last 10 years, even to a region where genocide occurred.” The international community’s High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, used the word “miracle” to characterize an undeniably complex situation: “
The miracle in Bosnia is how much has been done in ten years,” he stated. “A sixteenth of the population was murdered, more than in France after WWII, half of the people was left homeless, and 90% of the structures were destroyed.” We’ve lost track of how long it takes to mend; healing is usually measured in decades.”
UNHCR has been active in the Balkan issue since its inception. At the height of the crisis, it was assisting up to 3.5 million people across the region with the support of other humanitarian organizations. To feed its inhabitants, UNHCR initiated a 312-year airlift into the besieged Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, which became the world’s longest-running humanitarian air bridge.
Following the signing of the Dayton Peace Accord on November 21, 1995, the UNHCR began assisting the large population of civilians who had been displaced in their nations or fled as refugees to neighboring states to return home. In September of last year, the organization officially stated that over 1 million uprooted people had returned to Bosnia, including over half a million to areas where they were a minority, making them more vulnerable and in need of further support and security.
Hundreds of thousands of additional displaced people have permanently relocated abroad, falling off the radar of organizations such as UNHCR. Over half of the estimated 500,000 homes damaged or destroyed by the conflict in Bosnia have been restored with foreign assistance estimated at $5 billion. Since Dayton went into force, the United Nations Refugee Agency has spent an estimated $500 million on house rebuilding, demining operations, necessary infrastructure maintenance, establishing a legal aid network, providing basic humanitarian assistance, and other fast response initiatives.
The number of troops dispatched to impose security from the United States, Europe, and other nations have decreased from a peak of 69,000 to roughly 7,000 as the general situation has improved. For some years, UNHCR has been diminishing its presence and programming and will continue to do so. The large stream of international help is rapidly diminishing, and the economy is barely surviving. The national unemployment rate is over 40%, and up to 50% of the population lives in or near poverty.