At the age of 11, Mersiha Čusto (fromerly Mersiha Begović) saved a child from Bosnia and Herzegovina while they were ice skating on a partially frozen pond at a military barracks in the Czech town of Nyrsko. They were staying at the barracks as refugees during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The siege of Sarajevo (1992-1996) was the longest siege of a capital city in modern history. The daily campaigns of shelling and sniping, targeting the civilian population, were terrible and cruel, compounded by the blockade of humanitarian aid convoys and the severance of any connection with the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the world.
The exhibition “Scarves of Remembrance” was opened at the Srebrenica Memorial Center on July 9th, as part of the commemoration of the 27th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica.
More than 50 young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Europe and the world tied scarves and shawls on both sides of the path that connects the Srebrenica Memorial Center and the graves of Srebrenica genocide victims, creating an art installation entitled „Mother's Scarf“ to pay tribute to the mothers and women – the heroines of Srebrenica – and their long-standing fight for justice and truth.
In this year’s Peace March, thousands of participants walked from Nezuk (Sapna municipality) to Potočari (Srebrenica municipality) in memory of those killed in the genocide of July 1995. They passed through mountainous terrains, dense forests, and a number of returnee settlements. Upon arrival in Potočari, they attended the funeral for 50 victims of the genocide whose remains were found over the past year.
Witnesses, fighters, and heroines are the words used to describe the mothers and women of Srebrenica. For 27 years, they fought for the truth, the existence of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, to find the remains of their loved ones, and to punish the perpetrators of the most terrible crimes.