A Cry from the Grave by Leslie Woodhead - Essay Example

This mass killing is indeed a very horrible and a very traumatic occurrence in Bosnia. The experience of Bosnian Muslims during the period of war is of course a tragic one. Nobody except the Bosnian community could understand what it was like to be there in a place where it had seemed that death was the only thing that could happen to them at the end of the day. Nonetheless, the documentary “A Cry from the Grave” which has captured the dread and terror of the hour by hour story of the July 1995 Srebrenica genocide during the Bosnian war conveys a message that even if the war is over, it is not enough because there were more than 80,000 Bosnian Muslim who were still crying for justice from their graves.

The images from video clippings of the camcorder and from the photographs of the Bosnian war, without a doubt, served a function of being the strongest element in the documentary itself to express that disastrous incident. Images of people seeking for refuge, images of people trying to escape their danger from the Serbian forces, images of people wounded, and the images of people killed have captured and covered not only the Bosnian genocide but can also elicit sentiments of sorrow, grief and fear from the testimonies of the survivors of the said war.

The Bosnian war had all begun when the Bosnian Serbs attacked the lands where the Bosnian Muslims were residing. They attacked such zones in order to secure the Serb’s territory. This was followed by “ethnic cleansing”. The Serbian forces systematically eliminated the Muslim population within their territory. They separated the men from the women and children. Some of them were forced to escape the zones which the Serbs had considered to own. Nonetheless, this also resulted to thousands of deaths among the Bosnian Muslims.

In addition to that, the series of constant attacks made by the Serbian army had likewise resulted to thousands of killings. Meanwhile, the United Nation declared that Srebrenica was a safe area in 1993. Nonetheless, two years later, this “safe area” had started to deteriorate in 1995 and marked the beginning of the traumatic genocide. The documentary showed how those protecting the Bosnian Muslims had started to withdraw their support in Srebrenica. Basic resources including food and medicine, as well as the fuel and ammunition, had started to lowered.

Bosniak civilians suffered from famishment. A few also had been killed because of starvation. The humanitarian situation of Bosnian Muslims turned to be the worst. It is the case that even the United Nation forces in the Srebrenica had been affected from such withdrawal of support. The United Nation forces were no longer patrolling using their means of transport but were just on foot as they guarded the enclaves. Likewise, from 600 Dutch soldiers, it had dropped to only 400. Moreover, the Serbian forces were now within their territory.

Their forces had become stronger and stronger and were out of control. On the one hand, the forces governing the safety of the Bosnian Muslim civilians had also lowered. Support from the air forces was also rejected. They were made to hope about the support which never had come. The situation had become worse and worse every single day for the lives of the Bosnian Muslims who all had their lives and nothing else. The situation was far from achieving a peaceful Srebrenica. What happened was an environment of total insecurity.

There was no hope for the lives of the Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica asking for refuge. The documentary had illustrated the thousands of refugees from Srebrenica gathered around in the compound of United