A mother who watched her son's murder on television
Mother Nura Alispahić will be remembered as a mother who watched on television as members of the notorious "Scorpions" executed her sixteen-year-old son Azmir. The crime against six Bosniaks, among whom Nura's son was the youngest victim, was recorded on camera by members of the "Scorpions". During the trial of Slobodan Milošević in 2005, the execution footage was released and subsequently circulated around the world. The footage shows the "Scorpions" taking six bound civilians out of a truck, then leading them to a clearing where they shoot four from behind with single shots and bursts, and then shoot them in the heads again at close range. The remaining two captives, one of whom was the son of mother Nura, were forced to carry the bodies, after which the "Scorpions" also killed them in Godinjske Bare in Trnovo.
"I turned on the TV at 10 o'clock, just like that, I didn't know it would be on. And I hear them say: Unfortunately, now a mother will recognize her son, a sister her brother... When they started, they showed four of them killed, and left two to remove the dead - and then I see, one is my Hasko... I was alone in the room. I called my daughter: Come, here's Hasko. By the time she came, I saw their hands were placed like this. They killed the one in front of him. My son turned around and looked as if he was seeking some help, like something. As he turned around and looked, they killed him too. As they killed him, he fell to the ground. I cried out: Ahh, son, they killed you. It was as if they had killed him right then. When I saw that, I lost consciousness, I couldn't come to for two hours. My daughter was with me, later I only then realized what had happened," said mother Nura after she first saw the footage of her son Azmir's murder.
"He was in eighth grade, hadn't even finished school when Srebrenica fell. He went through the forest. I saw him off, but he came back shortly after. I asked him: Son, why have you returned? He told me: I didn’t kiss you, mom, I came back to kiss you. I kissed him. Go, son, I told him, knowing I would never see him again. I gave him a piece of cornbread, some onion, salt, and a bottle of water. He left and that was the last time I saw him before this footage. How can I feel today, it's as if he was killed right here in front of me today. To kill an innocent, to chase him through the forest... Every day it gets harder. I can't live anymore, I just want to die and go to my son. If only one had stayed, but not one did." Her other son, Admir, was killed by the Army of Republika Srpska when they fired a shell from Ozren at the Tuzla Gate on May 25, 1995. A single shell then killed 71 people, mostly youth.
Nura's husband Alija, eleven cousins, brothers, nephews, uncles, and granduncles were killed by the VRS. Her father-in-law and mother-in-law were burnt alive by VRS members in their home. Nura buried her son Azmir in 2003 in the Potočari cemetery—only a small part of his remains. Several months later, a fisherman found a skull and a hand bone; after DNA analysis confirmed they were her son's remains, a re-exhumation was carried out and these bones were added to his grave. "They called me and asked if I permitted adding his skull and hand, I agreed. I went there, when they took out his coffin, opened it, I saw his bones. I took them and kissed them," mother Nura said at the time.
She often visited the Potočari cemetery at her son's grave. "When I head towards my son's grave, it feels as if I will find him there alive, see him sitting and waiting for me. My heart feels full. I always expect him to be waiting, but he is not there."
Mother Nura passed away in 2020.
Source:
Preporod newspapers
