“When the bursts of fire died down, one of them asked:

Are there any survivors?

I survived, said one person.

And the other one said: I survived. Kill me.”

Excerpt from the testimony of witness Ahmo Hasić from 6 September 2006, in the trial of Prosecutor v. Vujadin Popović et al. before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Ahmo Hasić is one of the few men from Srebrenica who survived the mass executions of detained Bosnian Muslims in July 1995. His two sons did not share the same fate. They were killed, together with thousands of other Bosnian Muslim men and boys. Based on evidence presented in trials before the ICTY and the Mechanism, up to 8,000 men and boys were killed or are still missing.  At the same time, around 30,000 Bosnian Muslim women and children from the Srebrenica enclave were forcibly transferred. These crimes had been planned and organised at the highest levels within the Bosnian Serb political, military and police structures. In several cases before the ICTY and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism), it was concluded that the crime of genocide was committed in Srebrenica in July 1995.

The online exhibition Srebrenica: Timeline of a Genocide chronicles the events relating to the genocide in Srebrenica. It features exhibits submitted in the relevant cases before the ICTY and the Mechanism, as well as trial footage of witness testimonies.

The events set out in the exhibition can be divided into three phases: planning (end of June and beginning of July 1995); implementation (from 11 July 1995 onwards); and cover up (September and October 1995). Key events, such as the start of the military attack on Srebrenica, the Bosnian Serb Army’s entry into the enclave, the forced transfer of women and children, and the capture and subsequent mass execution of men and boys at many locations, are introduced with a short description. The viewer is then taken through each event from two perspectives: that of a victim and that of an insider from the Bosnian Serb authorities.

In addition to Ahmo Hasić’s witness testimony, the exhibition presents excerpts from the testimonies of other Bosnian Muslims who survived the mass executions, including Fahrudin Muminović, who was only seven years old at the time.

The testimonies of these survivors are juxtaposed with those of insiders testifying about the same events. “I was told that all the Balijas[1] have to be killed”, says one insider. ”The telegram said that a platoon of soldiers should be detached and that they should be used for the execution of the prisoners”, says another. A third insider recounts the scene of an execution: “When the men turned their backs to us, we shot at them.” The testimony of a member of the Scorpions unit, whose camera recorded the murder of six boys and young men in Trnovo, is also included in the exhibition.

Srebrenica: Timeline of a Genocide presents a singular journey through a period during which the darkest page in the history of the 1990s conflicts in the former Yugoslavia was written. It provides a unique opportunity for those who wish to inform themselves about the genocide using the evidence that was weighed and relied upon by Judges of the ICTY and the Mechanism. The exhibition sets out who the victims and the perpetrators were and places the genocide in Srebrenica in a temporal context. By disseminating information based on judicially-established facts, the exhibition aims to act as a defence against the revisionism and denial of the events that took place and the crimes that were committed.

The exhibition can be found at the following link:

https://www.irmct.org/specials/srebrenica/timeline/en/ and is available for use, without restrictions, for educational and other purposes, including public events.

The exhibition is produced by the Mechanism Information Programme for Affected Communities (MIP).

The aim of the MIP is to improve the knowledge and understanding of citizens and communities in the countries of the former Yugoslavia about the crimes committed during the conflicts of the 1990s, based on ICTY and Mechanism cases. The MIP is generously supported by the European Union and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

The Mechanism was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1966 (2010) to complete the remaining work of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the ICTY after the completion of their respective mandates. The Mechanism has two branches, one in Arusha, Tanzania, and one in The Hague, Netherlands.

[1] Derogatory term for Bosnian Muslims