Heartbreaking Photos of a Bosnian Soldier Who Cries When He Returned to His Village Where He Discovered His Family Was Executed by the Serbs

Senad Medanovic, sole survivor of a massacre, finding his home in ruins after the Bosnian army recaptured his village from Serb forces. He is standing on what is believed to be a mass grave of sixty-­nine people, including his family. Bosnia, 1995.

Senad Medanovic, a Bosnian soldier and former factory worker returns to his home in the village of Prhovo. 42 members of his immediate and extended family were killed here. 53 of the villager bodies were found in 2 mass graves. One right next to his house where he grieves. September of 1995. When he was 22 years old, on June 1, 1992 a battalion sized element of Serbian soldiers and Serbian Paramilitaries entered the town.

Medanovic had heard stories about them and fled to the woods into the undergrowth. his family did not believe the stories to be true. He watched as they came in and began to round up and shoot the civilians.

When he saw the killing started he ran further into the woods. He was captured 6 days later wondering through the Grmec plains. He was taken to Manjaca POW camp. There he found his brother and 10 others from his village. They told him what had happened, his mother and most of his family had been killed. They told him the location of where the mass grave was. 17 months later he was exchanged for Serbian prisoners were he began to fight.

3 years later, he stands where the war started for him. His home. The blue shirt he found belongs to his little cousin that was killed that day.

He found his smashed fathers and grandfathers head stones that died before the war and attempted to fix them “Can you read their names now? Can you see who was buried here?”