Nesib Tabaković: Crossed the last "route of salvation" from Srebrenica to Tuzla almost blind

No one believed that any of us could stay alive. The Chetniks constantly set ambushes and killed people, or they shelled and fired heavy weapons at us from the surrounding hills. You watch a friend fall in a pool of blood, but you can't help him. It was difficult – recalled in an exclusive interview with the BiH news agency Patria (NAP) one of the few who survived the ordeal that the Bosniaks of Srebrenica went through in '95, while fleeing from the Chetnik daggers towards the free territory of Tuzla.

Nesib Tabaković, who was only 25 years old during the genocide in Srebrenica, is the only survivor from his column that tried to break through to Tuzla from Srebrenica on July 11. Today he lives in Sweden with his wife and children. In the rarely published photographs showing the ordeal of the people of Srebrenica, taken by Tuzla photojournalist Ahmet Bajrić, Tabaković is the young man with a blindfold over his eyes.

Only God, he says, wanted him to stay among the living. This is probably, he says, so that he can testify today about the greatest genocide in Europe after World War II.

He crossed the last "route of salvation" almost completely blind, with a shrapnel in his head. His comrades helped him move through the impassable forests to Baljkovica, where he first saw the legendary commander Naser Orić. That, he says, was a sign that he was saved.

- Even today, I don't understand how I endured it all – Tabaković tells Patria.

- On July 11, '95, we set off from Srebrenica towards Tuzla. The plan was for all military-capable men to reach Tuzla through the forests. Women, children, the elderly, and the wounded went towards Potočari, under UN protection – Tabaković reminisces. But that was obviously their biggest mistake.

- I'm not sure how many of us were in the column, but there were about 8,000 people.

Nesib's wife was in Tuzla with his mother. His sister and brother with their families remained in Srebrenica. The Chetniks would kill his father along with other Bosniaks. He found him only in 2007 and buried him a year later.

- We arrived at Jaglići at 2 AM, and at 8:30 AM we set off with the 28th Division towards Kamenica. That's where hell began. The Chetniks shelled us and fired heavy weapons at us. And then another shock. An ambush in Kamenica near Kravica. The Chetniks killed everyone they could. The wounded begged us not to leave them to be slaughtered. But, you simply can't help everyone, because you need help yourself – says Tabaković. He says that no one from his friends who set off with him from Srebrenica reached Mount Udrč alive. He later found their names on the memorial in Potočari. They were all killed, every single one.

Four days after the fall of Srebrenica on July 11, exhausted, wounded, hungry, Nesib was wounded for the third time at Križevačke njive, this time in the head and arm. He lost his right eye.

- Seven of us were wounded at Križevačke njive, and one man died. I still don't know what we were wounded by, whether it was mines or a shell.

That's the last thing he remembers. He lost consciousness. His comrades helped him reach Baljkovica, where he received first aid. The five hardest days of his life, without food and water, under shelling, were behind him.

- When I saw the commander of the 28th Division, Naser Orić, I knew then that we had reached free territory in Nezuk. Unfortunately, many were not so lucky – says Tabaković, writes Patria.