19/04/1993 | Voices from the Drina

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We are allegedly safe in Srebrenica now, because the Canadian battalion has arrived. But they’ve taken the little weapons we had away from us. They’ve even taken our one tank, for which we have no ammunition. We’d hoped to get some somehow from Tuzla or Sarajevo.

🧵 Canadian UN soldiers are setting up servers posts, fencing them off with barbed wire, and are collecting our weapons.

No one wants to give up their gun. Realistically a ridiculously small amount of weapons will be handed over to the Canadians, probably some old weapons that are out of use and a relatively large number of hand-made guns.

Weapons that are handed over are being stored in the factory courtyard. From the street and through the barbed wire I can see both tanks + a 105 mm-calibre howitzer for which there’s no ammunition + an APC fitted with two recoilless guns for which there’s neither fuel nor ammo.

They’ve also taken our helicopter rocket-launcher mounted on wheels and used as artillery. I can’t help thinking of the people who’ve died seizing that weaponry, someone’s sons and husbands.

Now that we’re handing over our weapons to the UN, most of us think the war is over. I think the UN will do everything to protect us if the town were to be attacked. Once the war is over in the rest of BiH too, we can get out of Srebrenica and see freedom

BREAKING: chaos as UN tries to evacuate its quota of 500 injured civilians from Srebrenica. One UNHCR officer described amputees hobbling down the hillside to the helicopters. He was faced with a choice between which amputees to evacuate and which to leave behind. (1/2)

The same UNHCR officer tells us that one man without an eye offered to pluck the other out if it meant being evacuated. (2/2)

Thanks to God that my injured daughter is being evacuated out of Srebrenica today. She’ll be safe in Tuzla.

The family and I have decided to stay put and not seek evacuation for those of us who are eligible via the UN. I’m not convinced people will be safer in Tuzla and my number one priority is to keep our family intact in one place.