Blood & Vegeance

In July 1995, approximately 7000 Muslim men, women and children died at Serbian hands in and around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. It was the largest mass execution in Europe since the Nazi era; a stunning failure for the United Nations and the Western powers; and the grim watershed that led to Nato air strikes and the current fragile peace. The author asks how this shocking and still imperfectly understood act of genocide was allowed to take place in the first place. This work puts a human face on the grim statistics and tangled politics of this event. Through the odyssey of the Celiks, a Muslim family, journalist Chuck Sudetic tells the story a people and a nation. His narrative folds reaches as far back as the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, and unfolds towards the Celiks' rendezvous with history in the so-called "safe area" of Srebrenica.