Adel Šabanović: He was eight years old, bringing water to Chetniks to wash their knives after slaughter

Several thousand Sarajevans paid their respects today and bid farewell to 175 identified victims killed by soldiers of the Republika Srpska army during the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, writes BH news agency Patria (NAP).

Among the victims farewelled today towards the Memorial Centre in Potočari, where they will be buried on 11 July, are 13 minors, the youngest of whom was just 14 years old when killed.

Among the many who came to bid farewell to the truck carrying the remains of Srebrenica victims today in front of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina building in Sarajevo was 31-year-old Adel Šabanović. He lost 22 members of his immediate and extended family in Srebrenica. He also recalled how he had to bring water to members of the Drina Corps of the RS army to wash their hands and knives after slaughtering Bosniaks.

Although he was only eight years old, before his eyes members of the RS army raped and slaughtered several of his friends and family members.

- They killed my father at the beginning of the aggression, and later my grandfather – Šabanović told a Patria reporter.

- I don't know how I survived either. The Chetniks were killing in my village of Zaklopača for three days, and they forced me to bring them water with which they washed their hands and knives after slaughtering my neighbours. Afterwards, my grandmother somehow put me on a truck that deported refugees from Srebrenica, so I somehow saved my skin – said Šabanović.

Today he lives in the municipality of Hadžići. He receives only a hundred KM in aid monthly and what kind people give him. The house he lives in alone was built for him by benefactors, writes Patria.