Title: The Srebrenica Genocide: A Testament to Persistence in “The Last Refuge”

Nuhanović was one of the many targeted for nothing other than an identity he could not change nor hide––his ethnicity and religion. As he recounts teetering between life and death, he graphically depicts what it means to be a refugee fleeing imminent danger. He bears no shame writing candidly about the humiliation, discussing the primitive fear and wild hunger from a raw perspective that is often missing in stories conveyed years later. He never paints himself as the hero, but rather as someone who could have always done more to protect the family he loved fiercely, even when all was out of his hands. Nuhanović’s tale focuses on the years leading up to the atrocious massacre, affirming the boundless capacity of man to persist through hardships like ceaseless shelling, relentless starvation, and frigid conditions. His writing is a tribute to all who perished—and a troubling reminder of the scars that genocide leaves on victims, witnesses, and nations.

Similar to many who have survived to tell their stories, Nuhanović’s traumatic experience was a consequence of the failure to leave before it was too late. At twenty-four years old, Nuhanović was a fourth-year student of mechanical engineering preoccupied with fluid mechanics and his girlfriend Mirza. Despite warning signs, Nuhanović and his family could never have foreseen the future that lay ahead. The writer epitomizes the human tendency to believe that, against all odds, life will get better, or at the very least go on. Reflecting on his time in the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) during the spring of 1988, Nuhanović says he could have never imagined the army he served turning on him, threatening  his life only a few years later. Vlasenica was the only home his family had ever known, and his father’s staunch refusal to leave was indicative of the impossible decisions placed before those amid the growing conflict. Though Nuhanović begged his family relentlessly to escape to Sweden, neither he nor his father truly anticipated how quickly the violence would escalate, nor how quickly they would find themselves “hungry, barefoot, [and] empty-handed” traveling in search of uncertain safety (12).

Dehumanization Through Starvation

What distinguishes The Last Refuge from other literature on genocides is the focus on the physical and psychological effects of starvation. While works documenting genocides from the Holocaust to Rwanda have detailed the agony of having little to no nutrition for months on end, Nuhanović’s description goes one step further, likening this existence  to being in an animal-like state. When the only way to survive is to steal the food for cattle in the dead of night from enemy farms, the victim loses all sense of self, and begins to feel “more like an animal and less like a human being” (92).He captures the innate selfishness of man without apologizing for it  for the sake of the reader, even when his own thoughts cause him repulsion. He, for instance, painfully recalls erupting at his family when he believed his mother cut him a smaller piece of bread from a communal loaf, and later describes being furious with himself, questioning whether he had gone mad (180).

Even in the fog of desperation, exhaustion, and famine, his self-reflection and awareness is astonishing. Staring at himself in the mirror, he is in horror of the person he has become. Having dropped more than twenty-five kilograms, he was nothing more than skin and bone;  yet, even in that moment, he acknowledges the sacrifice of his parents, as his father had lost nearly forty. The power of his writing lies in its emphasis on emotion. While other pieces of literature more clearly document the specific events of the war, few parallel the depth of feeling  conveyed by Nuhanović. The lapses in time between events in each chapter are telling of his state.For him, time became a blur. Without the constancy of a next meal or the assurance of a tomorrow, life was obscured by what felt like an eternal suffering. Moments of confusion only further enhance the account’s effectiveness. There are days that, even years later, he cannot fully recall. Living on the verge of collapse, time blended together into one painful existence. For him and thousands of others, hunger became all-consuming, and food became everything. Flour was their lifeline; each time their family ran out, Nuhanović and his father subjected themselves to more precarious conditions to obtain more. They would rather have died trying to save themselves than surrender like the animals their enemy wanted them to be.

While the World Watched

Nuhanović’s firsthand account brings to life the human consequences of using food as a weapon of war. By sharing his story chronologically, Nuhanović brings the reader on his journey to the brink of death––all while the rest of the world watched. The memoir also reminds the reader of what happened when Western governments failed to intervene. Unlike the atrocities committed earlier in the twentieth century, distressing images of the Srebrenica genocide were circulated  around the globe. While public condemnation was quick, decisive action from the international community was far too slow. After U.S. President Bill Clinton assumed office in 1993, many believed the change in administration “would bring change for the better in Bosnia” (239). Despite promises made by the United States and UNHCR, however, the aid on the ground was too little, and the red tape too great, to stop the atrocities. Without an official certificate that they were registered refugees in Žepa, Nuhanović and his father were refused food from the UNHCR convoy. Obstacles like these highlight the international community’s failure to effectively distribute humanitarian aid. While the intention of those on the ground was to ensure order and fairness, anyone without papers was effectively refused help.

The final chapters of the book are a blur. On April 17, 1993, a UN resolution declared Srebrencia a safe zone under the protection of the Canadians, then the Dutch Battalion. Nuhanović does not detail the years between 1993 and 1996, and for good reason. While his safety was guaranteed by the Dutch Battalion, he was rendered powerless when Sbrenecia surrendered to the Serb forces in 1995, and his family, along with 8,000 other Bosniaks, was executed. Many saw the Dutch Battalion as complacent in the making of the massacre, which  might have been avoided with NATO intervention. The author’s decision not to recount the painful memories of these years speaks to the lasting impression such terrible events leave on all involved.  In the end, Nuhanović’s life is a testament to human persistence. The Last Refuge humanizes conflict, acting as a compelling reminder that we must never forget that behind every headline, every statistic, and every photograph, there is an individual struggling to survive.

. . .

Carly Kabot is an undergraduate in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Work Cited

Hasan Nuhanović. The Last Refuge: A True Story of War, Survival, and Life under Siege in Srebrenica. (London and Chicago: Peter Owen Publishers).