The death of Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander convicted of genocide, has brought little closure to the mothers of Srebrenica who lost entire families under his command. Mladic d Thursday while serving a life sentence in The Hague for crimes committed during the 1990s Bosnian conflict.
Mejra Djogaz, 77, lost three sons, her husband, and a grandson in the 1995 massacre. She lives near the Potocari memorial center where thousands of marble gravestones mark Europe’s worst bloodshed since World War II. “I would have liked him to live even longer, so that he could suffer more, as we mothers suffer,” she said.
Mladic suffered several strokes before dying in hospital. He’d been convicted for his role in the Srebrenica massacre where more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were ed and dumped in mass graves. But what haunts survivors isn’t just his death.
Fadila Efendic, whose son and husband were ed in July 1995, expressed deeper concerns. “What is particularly difficult for me to accept is that his ideas are not dead,” the 74-year-old said. Across Serbia and Republika Srpska, hundreds marched through streets Friday night, waving flags and chanting Mladic’s name in tribute.
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