August 1993 | Voices from the Drina

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🧵 Dad and I were beaten today for having spoken to the Red Cross reps. They’d promised us everything we said was in confidentiality.

Vinko Bojić beat me in a bestial way in his office. He put his pistol in my mouth. He pulled hair from my armpits and inserted it in my mouth. He extinguished cigarettes on me and ordered me to eat the extinguished cigarettes.

He ordered me to remove my clothes. He then hit me in the ribs with a knife handle. One of my ribs was broken in the beating. While he was beating me, Bojić asked me if I had enough to eat and basically all the things I had complained about to the Red Cross.

After several minutes , he ordered me to get dressed and then brought my father in. Bojić beat my father. Bojić asked my father if he wanted to go to Germany, or to a third country, which reflected what my father had told the Red Cross.

Bojić then ordered me to beat my father. I hit my father maybe five or six times; I was out of strength. Bojić said: “If you don’t want to, I will” and hit my father about 15 or 16 times until my father fell down. They made me beat my father.

A UN soldier from Jordan approached me today with a proposal that has left me feeling sick and disgusted. He came up to me and asked if I could get him a girl, and that he would pay in cigarettes. I told him I couldn’t help him.

New English classes have started in Srebrenica! They’re being led by a former JNA officer named Mohammed.

The Srebrenica wartime hospital is the only building I refuse to enter. My stomach can’t bear the foul odor, the smell of rotten human flesh that permeates the hospital.

We’re holding a big cultural event in Srebrenica! There will be a variety of sports competitions from football, to wrestling, to running, to shot put. People will be singing sevdalinka songs. Everyone in Srebrenica is invited to watch and take part!

I haven’t had a single day off since being recruited to interpret for UNPROFOR. No weekends or holidays. The same goes for Senad and @suljagićemir. We work every day from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. And we’re not being paid a penny.