DISAPPEARANCES AND EXHUMATION OF CHILDREN FROM MASS GRAVES Mr. JASMIN ODOBASIC COMMISSION FOR TRACING MISSING PERSONS IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINAMr. Jasmin Odobas DISAPPEARANCES AND EXHUMATION OF CHILDREN FROM MASS GRAVES ‘Wines preparing tiie piper: thave teen thinking a lot about difficulties of writing on the — ‘opie so painful while n the same time so important for our future. The paper deals with true eventg and with facts. Each event, each name, and each location are truthful. The destiny of children men- toned in this paper reflect the cruelty ofthe war in which the adults decide upon destiny of children even upon life and death 1. Penjavor in the year 1984 My nephew Amir, who was then 11 years old and attended the fourth grade of the primary school, retumed one day from school erying. His teacher, one exceptionally nice Serb woman, — Surtoned all the children to come to the school next morning and take part in the cross race celebrating the Orthodox Easter. For children, it meant they would rejoice, playing, However, there Was another woman, the school pedagogue, who came to say that it was the race planned only for the Serb children. Although he was not so much aware of Fascism, my little nephew was clever enough to understand that they would not be allowed to run because last year a Bosniak boy won the Gace. The story made me think of the Berlin Olympics and Hitler's reaction when a black man won, Somewhat later, this same teacher was forced to come and explain to the children that Bosniaks and. Croats among them should not complete their class with excellent marks. Still, she evaluated the children consciously and despite the orders issued by the authorities, That is why she is considered to be the hero by most of her students, What could one say about this other woman who is supposed to be the school pedagogue? She s most probably still poisoning the children psyche with fascism and creates future nationalist, i; My nephew Amir had a Serb neighbor Sladan. The two boys played together and grew up, ‘ogether: And then, in 1989, Sladan eame with a traditional Serb Chetnik cap and started singing the ‘songs celebrating the Serb royalist paramilitary from the WWIL. [asked him where did he ‘get the cap from and how come he knew that old song but the little boy told me that his grandpa had taken him to Kosovo (he took him to Gazimestan) and that Petar was the Serb king who fought against the Turks.fatherless. Amiris still a refugee, but an excellent student of the multiethnic gymnasium in Sarajevo. Slado is growing.up in poverty, almost hunger. His grandfather is already dead, while Slado is growing up surrounded by fascist wishing to leave everything and emigrate. Ihave always thought that this is an awful story. However, I never knew what horror the children would have to experience in the years that followed. Now, when | belong to those very few people dealing with the issue of missing persons, Iam learning every day what kind of horrors were done to children in those years. 2. Children gone missing in the war In the recent war, as it is the case with all wars, injustices are common. Children are very, often used in wars; in the fighting itself and in forced labor... There were any missing persons it this* recent war in BH, children included. The State Commission has reports on 27,700 missing persons. So far, 6,500 remains were exhumed of which 3% were children. By analogy we could assume that among the 27,700 missing persons, there are 800 missing children. The records we gathered do not