Burned in Their Own Home: The Hodžić Family of Suha near Bratunac, May 1992

Bratunac in the Spring of 1992

On 17 April 1992, Serb forces took control of the Bratunac municipality in eastern Bosnia. The attacks on Bosniak villages in the following weeks involved the Teritorijalna odbrana Bratunac, the JNA and paramilitary units. Witnesses generally refer to them simply as the "Serb army".

The Attack on Suha

On 9 May 1992, Serb forces set fire to houses in Cerovac and Polje. The next day, 10 May, they attacked the villages of Suha and Mihaljevići. The men were taken to the "Vuk Karadžić" school in Bratunac, and the women and children to the football stadium in Bratunac.

According to Derviša Hodžić, Serb forces burned down the Hodžić family house in Suha on the same day, 10 May 1992. In Suha, Zineta, Sabra, nine-year-old Salmir and eleven-year-old Elvis Hodžić were killed. The family memorial plaque also bears the names of Osman Hodžić and Zineta Hodžić. Sources differ on how the members of the family were related to one another.

Return to the Burned Village

An unnamed witness spent two days outside the village with other villagers. He described how the villages around Bratunac, among them Glogova, Cerovac, Hranča, Selište and Suha, were attacked and burned one after another. When they returned, the village was in flames. According to his testimony, in the burned house they found Osman Hodžić and his family killed and burned, including two boys, nine-year-old Salmir and eleven-year-old Elvis. "What we saw that day cannot be forgotten," he said.

The same witness states that other villagers also perished that day. He said they found Omer Hodžić killed by a shot to the left side of the head, and that his body later disappeared. According to the same testimony, Ramo Karić went to his house and never returned. Huse Jahić, the witness states, was killed together with his relatives and was found in the mass grave in Suha.

A Search That Continues

The remains of 38 women and children were exhumed from the mass grave in Suha. The remains of Salmir Hodžić have been found; those of Elvis Hodžić have not yet been.

Derviša Hodžić is still searching for Elvis's remains today. Her husband Beriz Hodžić went missing during the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995, and was buried in 2004 at the Srebrenica–Potočari Memorial Center.

According to the Missing Persons Institute of BiH, 32 children from Bratunac are still listed as missing, and nine entire families have disappeared. According to official data, 603 Bosniaks were killed in the Bratunac municipality in 1992.

Court Proceedings

The case "Bratunac-Suha" (K. Po2 8/18), which concerns the events in Suha in 1992, is being heard before the Higher Court in Belgrade.