Even after the United Nations (UN) declared Srebrenica a ‘safe area’ in March 1993, the Muslim community trapped inside the city was living under constant shelling. MSF provided medical care while starting to question how much protection the UN could actually provide.

MSF was the only provider of medical care in Srebrenica as the violence intensified. MSF wondered if our role had become more like de facto prison doctors in the besieged city. Was MSF inadvertently contributing to the Bosnian Serbs' strategy of ethnic cleansing? Would calling for the evacuation of Bosnian Muslims actually result in aiding the Bosnian Serb’s ethnic cleansing policy of driving the people out and claiming the land? And what if Bosnian Muslims wanted to leave? What should the position of MSF have been?

Srebrenica fell to the Bosnian Serbs in July 1995 and approximately 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred. How could this happen in the presence of United Nations (UN) peacekeepers in this so-called ‘safe zone’? What mechanisms did MSF put in place to speak out over the UN’s inability to protect the people of Srebrenica? 

Following the fall of Srebrenica, thousands were dead, missing or relocated to refugee camps. MSF questioned what could be done to ensure that peace did not take precedence over justice. Where did the responsibility for these actions and inactions lie?

Many nations were not taking responsibility for their (in)actions in the enclave. MSF France decided to put pressure on the French parliament to investigate France’s role in the fall of Srebrenica, by issuing an appeal for an investigative parliamentary commission. Should a humanitarian organisation speak out and advocate for official government inquiries in order to place responsibility, document events, seek justice and defend human rights?