Book Description
After the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1992, a war broke out. In the final stages of the war in July 1995, Serbian forces surrounded and laid siege to the town of Srebrenica. The largest genocide in Europe since World War II had begun. Out of options, Kadir decides to seek refuge at the Potocari enclave, a safe zone protected by a UN Dutch battalion, but the safe zone provides no protection to the unarmed civilians fleeing from certain death. Kadir and his family are captured by Serbian forces and forcibly separated from each other. Kadir is imprisoned with other men in the local high school in Srebrenica where they are severely beaten and tortured. The next day, he is loaded onto the back of a cargo truck with a group of Bosnian prisoners to be executed in a nearby town. Watching men being pulled off the backs of trucks and executed, Kadir begins shaking with the realization that he is about to be killed just like them. He then makes the daring decision to escape and flees into the woods. Exhausted, alone, starving and disoriented with an infection from an injury ravaging his body, Kadir wanders aimlessly through the woods for 17 days. On the verge of death, he hears a voice from the mountains. Moved by this surreal experience, Kadir finds the strength within himself to go on…
