Unearthing War Crimes in Bosnia

The 21 videos contain programs and footage from 1995-1999 on Physicians for Human Rights' (PHR) efforts to identify the bodies of those massacred during the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica. Some of the videos are educational programs explaining the identification project, and include an explanation of postmodern data by forensic anthropologists. The materials highlight the importance of collecting antemortem info on the victims' clothes, lifestyles and so on, which requires a team of case managers. Some of the videos present the training of case managers and highlight the psycho-social issues that they face when confronting families. Other programs include families describing their experiences during the genocide in Srebrenica. The videos contain many interviews with representatives and employees of PHR who explain their individual roles in the identification project. Many videos display footage of Srebrenica and the mass graves. The series also includes the 1999 documentary film "War Kids" about young adults who lived through the violence in Bosnia.

During its Forensic Assistance Project (FAP) in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1997-1999, PHR documented the extent and consequences of violence, as well as the humanitarian response of the international community in the immediate aftermath of the Yugoslav wars. Complementing the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which operated in the region simultaneously, PHR worked with local Bosnian forensic teams on FAP and several related projects to exhume and document mass grave sites that were not designated for investigation by other organizations, and to collect unique antemortem personal information on victims from families and match them with data collected from postmortem examinations.

Part of the Records of the Physicians for Human Rights' Bosnia Projects collection.