13 days on the run from death: Fatima searched dead bodies for her Mirsad

Fatima Ahmić is one of the lucky ones who managed to survive the genocide committed in 1995 in Srebrenica. Her son Mirsad was not so lucky. She survived 13 days without food and water, during which she was constantly surrounded by the dead, the dying, and the wounded, reports the Patria News Agency.

When the Army of Republika Srpska occupied Srebrenica, Fatima, along with her husband, two sons, and thousands of fellow citizens, headed towards the territory controlled by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her testimony recounts the dramatic days that marked her family and took her son.

- I thought, if any of them were wounded, I would either bandage them or stay with them... But not everything happens as one imagines. At the first shooting, we got separated, says Fatima, recalling how the column was exposed to constant attacks.

Fearing that her husband or children were among the numerous victims, she began to turn over dead bodies.

- I wasn't afraid of anything. Perhaps at that moment, God gives you something... And I came across a child. He looked just like my Sead. And I sat there with him for four days, said Fatima.

Only then did she notice that the shoes on the dead child were different. She got up and moved on.

Hungry and wounded children

- I don't know left or right, I don't know anything. I crossed the asphalt in broad daylight, and no one dared to cross it even at night, said Fatima.

Then she spent two days in the forest where a young man asked her to prove she was Bosniak.

- I told him I had left with my children and that I had lost them all. He said: 'Go down there, a group is sitting.' I went down, there were 12 of them... One said: 'Grandma, we are going to Sućeska, and if you want to come with us, you can prepare food for us. We won't reach Tuzla for a month,' she recalls, adding that they then fell into an ambush and had to turn back. No one knew the way

- We started again at night, when it was quiet. But when you enter the forest, you can't see where the trees are... If you don't hold hands, you get left behind. You can't see the sky... I arrived all torn and bloody, said Fatima, claiming that she hadn't eaten or drunk anything for a full 13 days. It was especially difficult for the children.

- You see children sleeping in the forest... One shouts: 'I dreamed of a big loaf of bread, Mom made it...' Everyone is hungry, she said, recalling the wounded children as well.

A boy from Vlasenica, who was bleeding profusely, remained particularly in her memory.

- A machine gun completely destroyed his elbow. I felt sorry for him. Wherever we sat down, he would fall asleep. I would wake him up for half an hour before we moved on. Once he yelled at me. He said: 'Leave me alone, stop bothering me.' And whenever we came to a stream, I would tear off the lining of his jacket and wet his wound because flies were swarming him. He was the same age as my children, said Fatima, adding that the boy survived and she met him again later. Many, however, did not survive.

If only my Mirsad were alive...

- I say, if only the forest could speak, how many dead were left behind. At the first ambush already... You run, you save yourself, you step over the dead and don't look, said Fatima, stating that she carried a "Papovka rifle and a grenade" with her. She intended to kill herself if she fell into an ambush. Near Kladanj, they encountered enemy trenches, after which they walked along a river for three days, trying to save their lives.

- You know, I grew up by the Drina, but I never felt a colder river. You slide down a rock face like a wall and fall into that whirlpool, and it throws you out and breaks you even more..., she said.

She finally found salvation in Kladanj, which took her thirteen days of walking to reach. Her husband Hasib took 66 days to cover the same distance, her son managed to do it in eight days, but her other son - never.

-- I just say, if only my Mirsad were alive... I don't have to see him, but if only he were alive, said Fatima. Her younger brother, father, and two brothers-in-law also died in Potočari, at the United Nations base, during the genocide, writes BIRN.