An iconic mother from Srebrenica, Hajra Catic, who fought after the Bosnian war for the truth about the 1995 genocide in this Muslim enclave, died on Tuesday, the Srebrenica Memorial Center said.
"One of the bravest among us (...) Hajra Catic died today without being able to attend the funeral of her son Nihad Nino Catic",
killed in the Srebrenica massacre at the age of 26, we read in a press release from the Memorial Center.
Read alsoSrebrenica genocide victims buried 26 years later
The remains of her son, a journalist who sent Srebrenica's last cry for help, shortly before the town was taken on July 11, 1995, by Bosnian Serb forces, have never been found.
"During the 26 years following the genocide, she kept the memory of the courage of this war reporter from Srebrenica, while motivating others not to stop fighting for truth and justice,"
the statement said.
Hajra Catic headed to Tuzla (northeast), the city where she fled during the massacre, the association "Women of Srebrenica". Every eleven of the month, she organized a rally to demand justice and the arrest of those responsible for the massacre. Some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and adolescents were killed in the Srebrenica massacre, which has been described as an act of genocide by international justice. The former political and military leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, have been sentenced by international justice to life imprisonment, in particular for this crime.
"If only I could find even a finger of my son to finally bury something,"
Hajra Catic said in an interview with AFP in 2010. Her husband Junuz was also killed in the massacre.
His remains were found ten years later and buried in the cemetery of the memorial center.