Thread by @zkusovac

THREAD: I first visited #Srebrenica on 28 November 1992 covering 1st UN food convoy that reached the enclave since the beginning of #Bosnia war. We were 3 teams, @SkyNews, @CNN & Belgian @RTBFinfo. (@amanpour & @NicRobertsonCNN were there). #Belgium #Army provided food trucks. /2

2/ They were good & reliable but #Dutch #military #police who were convoy command & security already then failed to impress me: pompous and incompetent. Unprepared, could only communicate with @UN HQ in Kiseljak and #UnitedNations in New York was by #SkyNews & #CNN satphones! /3

3/ After 5 days of being screwed by local Serbs with "democratic protests" and "spontaneous widows" & all usual BS we finally made it to #Srebrenica. Situation was appalling! The #hospital, formerly a small outpatient clinic, was overcrowded & incompetently run. As son of a /4

4/ #surgeon, with several wars under my hat, I saw that maybe 1 in 4 wounded would survive. Hospital had nothing, they "patched" deep bullet wounds with brown industrial sticky tape branded with some local factory name. Everything reeked of #death, stale putrid acidic stink of /5

5/ decomposing flesh. It was being run by a cheeky nitwit MD, utterly incompetent but politically well-positioned, who kept feeding us with usual political #propaganda but had no clue how many patients he had (head nurse knew: 75). As we were filming an obviously dying soldier /6

6/ Mirsad Omanović, Dr Ejub Alić suddenly tore off the tape covering a gaping, fist-size, wound on his neck "for the world to see". Disgusted with this cruel treatment of the wounded "for the benefit of the cameras" as he claimed, we refused to film any more wounded. But I /7

7/ wrote down some names: Kiran Muminović, a really bad case of advanced gangrene & no treatment available; Sead Klepić from Sućeska, paralyzed, no medication. I was sure none of them would survive. We had to get out of Srebrenica before nightfall, but before leaving we all /8

8/ collected every pill & bandage we had & gave all to the head nurse. I was shocked, shamed and disgusted. Back in Sarajevo I immediately went to #Bosnia #Army Head Surgeon, great Dr Abdulah Nakaš, showed him footage & pleaded to send competent staff to Srebrenica. He did. END

Shortly afterwards the first 2 surgeons (one of them Dr Jasenko Đozić, if my memory still serves me) WALKED into Srebrenica through Serb held territory and established a proper & competent medical service.