Bowling Green’s Bosnian population will commemorate the 27th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre Sunday with a walk to remember event.

The massacre, which was carried out by Bosnian Serbs in the town of Srebrenica, took the lives of 8,732 Bosniaks in July 1995. Additionally, more than 20,000 civilians were driven from the area. It was deemed a genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in 2004.

Adela Muhic, one of the organizers of this year’s event, was born after the genocide, but her family experienced the horrors firsthand. She can feel its ripple effects to this day.

“Both of my parents went through their own experience with it. They were 19-20 at the time,” Muhic said.

Her family moved to the United Nations safe zone at Srebrenica during the Bosnian War, but conditions in the zone deteriorated rapidly.

“They realized that leaving there would be better than staying there,” Muhic said.

Her father and grandfather were part of a group that escaped to some woods and lived there for more than a month, subsisting on leaves to survive.

Eventually, a few members of the group set off to try and reach safety in another town. Her grandfather was among them.

“They left, and 30 minutes in they heard gunfire and realized things were popping off, something was happening. That was the last time my father saw his dad,” Muhic said.

All told, she lost two uncles and two grandfathers in the genocide.

Her parents immigrated to the U.S. and originally lived in Arizona. They came to Bowling Green when Muhic was in third grade in order to be closer to Bosnian-owned trucking opportunities.

“We’ve not wanted to go anywhere else due to the sense of community with Bosnian and American people,” Muhic said. “We’ve created our home here.”

Muhic has had the chance to visit Potočari, the burial site of the genocide victims, twice. She went with her grandmother, who lost two sons and her husband in Srebrenica, in 2019 and returned in 2021.

“I don’t think there’s any words to explain that experience – you feel very hollow,” Muhic said. “It doesn’t get easier every time you go.”

To commemorate the genocide, the local Bosnian community will walk a route consisting of 8,372 steps, one for each victim, and hold a moment of silence in front of the Warren County Justice Center.

Backpacks will be collected and piled up to remember how residents of Srebrenica were only allowed to take what they could carry when expelled and separated by Bosnian Serb forces.

“That’s why we do it. They had to fit their entire life into a backpack, and ultimately it was stripped away from them,” Muhic said.

Muhic said the backpacks will be donated to the Stuff the Bus Foundation as a means of including the local community in the commemoration.

The Kentucky Museum will host a symposium at 6 p.m. Friday to ask a panel of experts what Srebrenica means to them, present a rundown of the genocide’s background and to give attendees a chance to try Bosnian food.

Panelists include Brent Björkman, director of the Kentucky Museum and Kentucky Folklife Program; Kate Horigan, folklorist at Western Kentucky University who researches the stories of genocide from Bowling Green’s Bosnian refugees; Barry Dye, former principal at Moss Middle School and Warren Central High School during the period when Bosnians were resettling in Kentucky; Mersiha Demirović, a licensed mental health therapist in Bowling Green who has an interest in the effects of war on Bosnian children; and Enisa Mustafic, a Bosnian-American student at WKU.

Muhic loves Bowling Green but acknowledges that it is hard to grow up indebted to two different countries and cultures.

“What’s hard for us kids who are growing up Bosnian-American is, at the end of the day, Bosnia is my home because of the blood that’s been shed there by my family,” Muhic said. “But America is also my home.

“It’s tough to find yourself between two countries, two homes, to try and figure out who you are. That’s been something us diaspora kids struggle with growing up. It’s been a struggle growing up finding who we are.”

Muhic is grateful the city has been so supportive of the Bosnian community’s events. She said these kinds of commemorations are important because it allows Bowling Green’s residents – no matter where they’re from – to get to know one another in a deeper way.

“We learn why this person is here and what they want from the city. All we wanted was a new home, a fresh start, a place to plant our roots and merge our two cultures,” Muhic said. “We teach our kids about Bosnia and also about America. We teach them to be thankful for being in BG and to not forget the reason we got to be here.”

The walk is scheduled to begin at noon Sunday at Circus Square Park.