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Why did more than 10,000 Bosniak men leave Srebrenica through the forest on July 11, 1995?

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Two women in headscarves embrace and mourn over a green coffin among rows of identical coffins at the Potocari cemetery during the Srebrenica massacre mass funeral. — Srebrenica genocide Women mourning over a coffin before the mass funeral for 136 newly identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, 2015.

On the night of July 11, 1995, a column of more than 10,000 Bosniak men departed Srebrenica through the forest in a desperate attempt to reach safety. This exodus occurred as Bosnian Serb forces, led by Ratko Mladić, successfully besieged the town, which had been designated a United Nations "safe area" during the Bosnian War.12

The men fled to escape the advancing Bosnian Serb military, which had already begun terrorizing the population and threatening to execute those remaining in the area. The fall of Srebrenica was marked by the explicit intent of Bosnian Serb leadership to commit acts of violence against the Bosniak population. Tragically, many of the men who attempted this escape were later captured or surrendered after being misled by false promises of security, leading to their subsequent execution in what is recognized as the Srebrenica genocide—the worst episode of mass murder in Europe since World War II.13

The systematic targeting and killing of these individuals was a profound violation of fundamental human rights and international law.12