The survivors refused. They took to the streets of the ruined city. They dug up the bodies of their dead from makeshift graves and laid them across the proposed partition line. On the satellite phones, the mayor told Holbrooke directly: “Send your tanks over our corpses.”
Goražde 1995: The Safe Area That Survived
July 1995. The hills around Goražde were on fire. gorazde 1995
Goražde 1995: The "Safe Area" That Refused to Fall In the harrowing landscape of the Bosnian War (1992–1995), the town of Goražde stood as a symbol of both international failure and local resilience. While other UN-designated "safe areas" in eastern Bosnia—Srebrenica and Žepa—fell to Bosnian Serb forces in the summer of 1995, Goražde remained the sole enclave to survive until the war’s end.
Gorazde was never just another Muslim enclave. Located on the banks of the Drina River in southeastern Bosnia, it was a vital strategic asset. Before the war, the city was a mixed industrial hub. But by 1992, Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladić had surrounded it, cutting it off from the outside world. The survivors refused
Following the Srebrenica massacre and the "Markale massacre" in Sarajevo (a mortar attack on a market that killed 43 people), NATO finally abandoned its policy of restraint. In late August 1995, NATO launched a comprehensive air campaign against Bosnian Serb positions, known as Operation Deliberate Force .
Today, the Drina flows green again. But every bridge in town is a memorial. On the satellite phones, the mayor told Holbrooke
What happened next is a lesson in failed deterrence and brutal agency. The Bosnian government commander in Gorazde, Colonel (later General) Mustafa Polutak, had no illusions. Unlike the commanders in Srebrenica who had struck a desperate deal with Mladić for the safety of civilians (a deal that was immediately broken), Polutak gave his men a stark order: No surrender. No evacuation. We fight to the last man, woman, and child.