EYEWITNESS IN SREBRENICA . . ."IT WAS A NIGHTMARE":

  • Share
  • Read Later
A witness to the Muslim evacuation of Srebrenica toldTIME's Edward Barnestoday: "The most incredible thing was the silence. It was a silence of pure terror. Families walked from the Dutch BatUNPROFORbase in Potocari along a corridor of Dutch soldiers toward the waiting buses. They looked directly forward because behind the Dutch were theBosnian Serb soldiers.Occasionally the silence would be broken by the bark of a soldier yelling "brzo," the Serbian word for "hurry." Then a child would repeat the word in a pleading whimper to those in front of him. Ten meters from the buses, three heavily armed Bosnian Serb soldiers wearing red ribbons on their right arms would look over the crowd and pick out those who would not make it. "You out," one of the trio would bark as the columns moved past. Usually it was a man surrounded by his family -- wife, children and hobbling old men and women. Amazingly the families would not look up when this happened. They just stared straight ahead as if eye contact might force their condemnation too. The man would simply ease out of the densely packed column and disappear."