Curriculum for Cohesion is represented on a Remembering Srebrenica delegation to Bosnia

By Dr. Matthew Wilkinson

8-11 February 2015. Dr. Matthew Wilkinson represented Curriculum for Cohesion on a four-day visit to Bosnia, based at Sarajevo, as part of the Remembering Srebrenica delegation. This delegation was also attended by representatives of the Association of Muslim Lawyers, The Forum for Discussion of Israel and Palestine (FODIP), the Faiths Forum For London and other British groups.

We learnt first-hand from our guide, Resad Trbonja, a veteran of the Siege of Sarajevo, about the appalling tragedy of the Bosnia War (1992-1995), including the terrible privations visited on the population of Sarajevo during the Siege of Sarajevo by the Army of the Republika Srpska, and the Srebrenica Genocide in which, on the evidence of the International Commission on Missing Persons, 8,067 Bosnian Muslim males were murdered by Serb militias between 11-16 July 1995. We learnt about this tragedy first-hand from survivors at the UN DutchBat base at Potocari, where thousands of Bosnian Muslim refugee men and boys were separated out from their womenfolk and led away for mass execution under the noses of the UN peace-keeping force.

As well as the harrowing food for thought offered on the nature of the human condition by this trip, the experience also reinforced the necessity of the mission of Curriculum for Cohesion to provide intellectually sustaining teaching tools whereby children can learn to be respectful and knowledgeable about each other’s backgrounds in school.