Waiting for a Funeral in Srebrenica

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Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Cemetery

Bosnia is the zip code for the heart of every Balkan cynic. Yet, hope lies in some details. You find it watching Eva Klonowski listening to what the bones tell her or in ICMP's relentless pursuit of DNA evidence. On June 9, the Srebrenica-Potocari Foundation published the official list of persons who have been identified in the past year and are to be buried in the July ceremony. Once again, the husband and sons of Hatidja Mehmedovic were not on the list, and they will not be among the 500 new bodies buried this July 11 at the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial.

The search, however, goes on. In the words of one of ICMP's anthropologists, Cheryl Katzmarzcyk, "I will have done my job if one day I can identify the bodies and that woman will have coffins for her sons." And I'll make one more trip on another July 11 for their burial at Potocari. Then I'll be able to stop coming back to Srebrenica.

Nick Hayes is a professor of history and holds the university chair in critical thinking at Saint John's University in Minnesota. He is a regularly featured commentator on Russia and East Europe for MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) and TPT (Twin Cities Public Television). He has worked and traveled extensively in the former Yugoslavia since 1994. He was in Bosnia in late May and early June conducting background research for a forthcoming report by Fred de Sam Lazaro of "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" to be broadcast on the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.

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