Hatidža Mehmedović

Hatidža Mehmedović died from complications of breast cancer at a hospital in Sarajevo on 22 July 2018 at the age of 65. Her death was confirmed by Ćamil Duraković, her friend and former Mayor of Srebrenica, who called her a "tough, strong woman, an incredible leader in the largely patriarchal society in which women remain mostly in the background."

Hatidža Mehmedović last saw her husband, Abdulah (aged 44), and sons, Azmir (aged 21) and Almir (aged 18), in the forested hills surrounding Srebrenica before their separation. She described her final parting with her family in a November 2017 interview with a Bosnian television station, "We were standing there and my young one, Lalo — that's what we called him, although his name was Almir — was saying, 'Go on, mother, go, leave, already' as he was pulling me closer and closer, and would not let me go... We thought we'd see each other in two, three days. We did not know they'd kill them all."

In November 2017, Mehmedović traveled to the Hague, where she was present in the courtroom for the sentencing of Ratko Mladić to life in prison for his role in the Srebrenica massacre. In an interview with Deutsche Welle (DW) following Mladić's guilty verdict and sentencing, Mehmedović's said: "A life sentence for Mladić is just a drop in the ocean." As president of the Mothers of Srebrenica, she pointed out that, even with the verdict, "We, the mothers, live only through the memories of our children." While Mladić was successfully prosecuted, she reminded observers shortly after the verdict that there were still perpetrators of other Bosnian wartime crimes against humanity at-large who needed to be brought to justice as well, telling DW, "We are sad that [Mladić] was sentenced only for Srebrenica and not also for genocide in other Bosnian communities. The butchers are being tried, but the entity created by these crimes still exists. Their rulers want to make it a state or to annex it to Serbia. We will never accept this."

The remains of her husband and sons were later recovered within the more than 100 mass graves uncovered in the region surrounding Srebrenica. Their bodies were positively identified. In 2010, Mehmedović had them reburied at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in the nearby village of Potočari.

In 2002, the same year she moved back to Srebrenica, Mehmedović founded Mothers of Srebrenica, an association of women and survivors whose relatives were killed in the Srebrenica massacre. The Mothers of Srebrenica advocated for justice for the victims and collected donations for survivors and their families. She also served as the leader and president of the organization.

Mehmedović's home near Srebrenica, which she reclaimed in 2002, became a memorial for victims of the massacre. She cared for three pine trees in her yard that her son Almir had planted before the Bosnian War. She also preserved a cement pathway leading to her house where Almir had written his name in freshly poured concrete by the front door.

By 1995, Serb forces had overrun much of eastern Bosnia and expelled the local Bosniak population in an ethnic cleansing campaign. Their objective was to annex Serb controlled areas to the neighboring Serbia. More than 40,000 people, mostly Bosniaks, took refuge in Srebrenica, one of the region's last enclaves outside Bosnian Serb control. However, the town was conquered by forces led by the Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladić. Srebrenica's women were evacuated, but much of Srebrenica's male population would be killed by paramilitaries under Mladić's command.

Mehmedović lived in a suburb of Sarajevo from the late 1990s until 2002. In 2002, she moved back to her prewar home in Vidikovac, located just outside Srebrenica on the road to Potočari, despite memories of the war and massacre. Mehmedović, who was one of first Bosniaks to permanently return to the area following the Bosnian War, wanted to show that Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs could still live side-by-side. She returned to a very different area. There was little electricity in 2002 and few paved roads in region. Her only neighbor at the time was an elderly Serb man, whom she helped with chores and shopping. She stressed that she did not blame Serbs or harbor collective guilt towards them. Instead, Mehmedović began to advocate for the arrest and convictions of individual perpetrators of the Srebrenica massacre.

Hatidža Mehmedović (née Bektić; 1 March 1952 – 22 July 2018) was a Bosnian human rights activist, survivor of the Srebrenica massacre, and founder of the Mothers of Srebrenica, an association of women whose relatives were killed in the July 1995 massacre in Srebrenica. Following the massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys, including her husband and two sons, Mehmedović became a vocal advocate for bringing the perpetrators of the Srebrenica massacre to justice.