The Playground Where Young People Were Killed: A Srebrenica Boy's Memory of 12 April 1993

Flight to the Besieged Town

Ahmed Hrustanović remembers the spring of 1993 from a child's perspective. According to his testimony, after the fall of the Biljeg hill above their village, his family set out on foot toward Srebrenica, which he states was about 35 kilometers away. Relatives in Fojhar took them in temporarily.

Srebrenica was at that time besieged and full of refugees. Life in the town was marked by fear, hunger and waiting for UN convoys, on which people left the enclave. In April, however, there was talk of a ceasefire, and young people began to gather again on the school playground.

12 April 1993

On 12 April 1993, shells fired from positions of the Vojska Republike Srpske (VRS) fell on the playground of the primary and secondary school in Srebrenica. Most of those hit were young people.

The figures on the number of victims differ. According to official data, 74 civilians were killed on the spot and about a hundred people, mostly young, were wounded. According to other sources, many of the wounded later died of their injuries, so the total number of victims is given as 105; according to one source, more than 30 of the wounded died in the hospital.

According to the testimony of Fikret Ibrahimović, his eighteen-year-old daughter was killed on the playground that day. "On that day my daughter happened to be at the poligon," he says.

One of Ahmed's friends survived the attack by, according to his own testimony, jumping into a ditch and taking cover.

Departure and Loss

Ahmed Hrustanović left Srebrenica in 1993 with his mother. His father and other male relatives remained in the enclave. In July 1995, all of his adult male relatives were killed in the genocide in Srebrenica. According to him, his father, who was 31 years old at the time, was killed in Kravica.

Return to the Playground

After 22 years, around 2015, Ahmed Hrustanović returned to the playground. The site of the killing is marked only by a small white plaque, and commemorations are held here every year on 12 April. A monument with the names of those killed is still missing today. Fikret Ibrahimović is calling for a monument to be erected with the names of all those killed on the playground.