Hatidža Mehmedović

By 1995, Serb forces had overrun much of eastern Bosnia and expelled the local Bosniak population in an ethnic cleansing campaign. Their objective was to annex Serb controlled areas into neighboring Serbia.[1] More than 40,000 people, mostly Bosniaks, took refuge in Srebrenica, one of the region's last enclaves outside Bosnian Serb control.[1] However, the town was conquered by forces led by the Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić.[1] Srebrenica's women were evacuated, but much of Srebrenica's male population would be killed by paramilitaries under Mladić's command.[1]

Hatidža Mehmedović last saw her husband, Abdullah, and sons, Azmir, 21, and Almir, 18, in the forested hills surrounding Srebrenica before their separation.[1][2] She described her final parting with her family in a November 2017 interview with a Bosnian television station, "We were standing there and my young one, Lalo — that's what we called him, although his name was Almir — was saying, 'Go on, mother, go, leave, already' as he was pulling me closer and closer, and would not let me go...We thought we’d see each other in two, three days. We did not know they’d kill them all."[1]

Mehmedović was bused to the relative safety to Kladanj, a town near Tuzla.[1] Red Cross officials later informed Mehmedović that her husband and sons were missing.[1] More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed in the massacre. Among the victims were Mehmedović's husband, sons, and her two brothers, Edhem and Hamed.[1]

The remains of her husband and sons were later recovered within the more than 100 mass graves uncovered in the region surrounding Srebrenica.[1] Their bodies were positively identified. In 2010, Mehmedović had them reburied at memorial cemetery for victims of the Srebrenica massacre in the nearby village of Potocari.[1]

Mehmedović lived in a suburb of Sarajevo from the late 1990s until 2002.[2] In 2002, she moved back to her prewar home in Vidikovac, located just outside Srebrenica on the road to Potocari, despite memories of the war and massacre.[2][3] Mehmedović, who was one of first Bosniaks to permanently return to the area following the Bosnian War, wanted to show that Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs could still live side-by-side.[2] She returned to a very different area. There was little electricity in 2002 and few paved roads in region.[2] Her only neighbor at the time was an elderly Serb man, whom she helped with chores and shopping.[2] She stressed that she did not blame Serbs or harbor collective guilt towards them.[2] Instead, Mehmedović began to advocate for the arrest and convictions of individual perpetrators of the Srebrenica massacre.[2]

In 2002, the same year she moved back to Srebrenica, Mehmedović founded Mothers of Srebrenica, an association of women and survivors whose relatives were killed in the Srebrenica massacre.[2] The Mothers of Srebrenica advocated for justice for the victims and collected donations for survivors and their families.[2] She also served as the leader and president of the organization.[1][2]

Hatidža Mehmedović became a forceful advocate for justice for her family and the other victims of the genocide.[1] She addressed both Bosnian and international audiences, including journalists, school students, human rights activists, neighbors, and politicians.[1] In an interview before her death, she reiterated her support for justice for the victims, "We can't let those who had killed to become the same as those who had been killed. I should not be the only one who is afraid of the future in which we don’t know who was the perpetrator and who was the victim."[1]

Most recently, Mehmedović had vocally opposed to growing nationalism within Bosnia.[1] She publicly condemned politicians throughout the Balkans who denied the existence of the Srebrenica massacre or supported ethnic or sectarian division in region.[1]

In November 2017, Mehmedović traveled to The Hague, where she was present in the courtroom for the sentencing of Ratko Mladić to life in prison for his role in the Srebrenica massacres.[2] In an interview with Deutsche Welle (DW) following Mladić's guilty verdict and sentencing, Mehmedović's said "A life sentence for Mladić is just a drop in the ocean."[2] As president of the Mothers of Srebrenica, she pointed out that, even with the verdict, "We, the mothers, live only through the memories of our children."[2] While Mladić was successfully prosecuted, she reminded observers shortly after the verdict that there were still perpetrators of other Bosnian wartime crimes against humanity at-large who needed to brought to justice as well, telling DW, "We are sad that he [Mladić] was sentenced only for Srebrenica and not also for genocide in other Bosnian communities. The butchers are being tried, but the entity created by these crimes (the Serbian republic in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Republika Srpska) still exists. Their rulers want to make it a state or to annex it with Serbia. We will never accept this."[2]

Mehmedović's home near Srebrenica, which she reclaimed in 2002, became a memorial for victims of the massacre.[2] She cared for three pine trees in her yard that her son, Almir, had planted before the Bosnian War.[2][3] She also preserved a cement pathway leading to her house where her son, Almir, had written his name in freshly poured concrete by the front door.[2][3]