Evicted from UN protection: Dutch Blue Helmets delivered helpless Bosnian refugees into the hands of Serb murderers

At Srebrenica in 1995 Dutch soldiers in UN blue helmets refused to protect Bosnian refugees who had sought shelter in the UN forces' compound and instead handed them over to be murdered by Serb forces even though only a few metres away other inhabitants of what was supposed to be a UN "safe area" were being raped and killed. The family of one of their Bosnian interpreters were refused asylum along with other UN employees known personally to the soldiers. This Monday in The Hague survivors of the genocidal atrocities perpetrated at Srebrenica will seek to hold the Dutch State accountable for these grave failings in two civil court cases due to be heard before the District Court at Prins Clauslaan 60 at 10 a.m..

Alongside a group of survivors from Srebrenica, Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV) / Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) will be demonstrating its solidarity with the relatives in a vigil in front of the Court building. The fate of the plaintiffs' relatives was one shared by thousands of Srebrenica's other inhabitants.

One of the actions is being brought by the UN interpreter Hasan Nuhanovic, whose campaign for truth and justice has long been supported by GfbV/STP. "The tragic fate of Hasan's parents and his younger brother, cold-bloodedly evicted from a UN office, turned over to the Serb forces and then murdered, has completely devastated his life", declared GfbV/STP General Secretary Tilman Zülch. "His thoughts are constantly revolving around the horrors of Srebrenica and the responsibility UN forces bear for the death of his helpless family." Nuhanovic researched and documented the terrible events at Srebrenica in meticulous detail over more than 500 pages before taking his case to law. The court will also hear a similar action brought by the family of the murdered electrician Rizo Mustafic.

A few days after the enclave fell to the Serb forces on 11 July 1995 the Dutch Blue Helmets were ordered by their government to leave Srebrenica, abandoning the defenceless Bosnians entrusted to their protection. The names of 8373 former inhabitants of the UN safe area who were murdered by the triumphant Serb forces and buried in mass graves are known. One of them, Hasan Nuhanovic's father, was recently identified from remains discovered in one of those mass graves. The fate of Hasan's mother and his brother remains unknown. Many of the mass graves were subsequently destroyed by Serb troops using bulldozers to conceal all evidence of the crime. The victims' remains were taken away and reburied elsewhere.

The Tragedy of the Nuhanovic Family: Hasan Nuhanovic spent the night of 12-13 July 1995 with his parents and brother in an improvised office in the UNPROFOR support base at Potocari, on the outskirts of Srebrenica, taking orders from the Dutch officer Andre de Haan. De Haan, who was in the same room along with a doctor and a nurse, had been a guest of the family on a number of occasions and was fond of his mother's cooking. Even so, when news was received that nine men had been killed outside the UNPROFOR base no-one came forward to help the family about to be separated from one another, Nuhanovic remembers in the account he gives in his book "Under the UN Flag". The next morning, between 5 and 6 a.m., de Haan said to him, "Hasan, tell your mother, your brother and your father that they must leave the base, now."