18 JULY 2012
Nurse Claims Srebrenica Was Like a Prison
Testifying at the war crimes trial of the former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, a former nurse described the town of Srebrenica in 1995 as an open-air prison.
MARIJA RISTIC Christine Schmitz, a nurse for Doctors Without Borders in Srebrenica in 1995, testified on Tuesday as the third witness for the prosecution at Mladic’s trial. “I had a feeling that there was no freedom of movement, since, for example, if someone wanted to go to the town of Sarajevo, they could not. My colleagues who were working in the nearby village of Zepa, secretly transferred things to us [in Srebrenica],” said Schmitz.
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| Christine Schmitz, former nurse of the Doctors Without Borders BIRN |
Schimtz recalled that in July 1995, a number of civilians fled to the village of Potocari because they feared the Bosnian Serb army which was about to occupy the town of Srebrenica. She said that Robert Franken, a Deputy of the UN Dutch Battalion, informed her that Mladic requested permission from the United Nations to organize an evacuation of Srebrenica. The witness then argued with General Mladic, claiming that the evacuation was the job of Doctors Without Borders, DWB, however, Mladic objected and told her to “go work on something else.” Schmitz previously testified at the trial of Radovan Karadzic, former President of the Republika Srpska. She then said she witnessed the shelling of Srebrenica, the exodus of the people to the UN base in Potocari, the separation of the men from the rest of the population, and the deportation of women and children to the territory controlled by the Bosnian army.
Schmitz explained that she then saw the Serb soldiers taking captured men to the Srebrenica execution sites. The witness left the enclave on July 21, 1995, together with other DBW staff.
July 18, 201210:12
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