GRAFFITIS DE SREBRENICA

They are everywhere, from the entrance to the city, where Serb nationalists regularly repaint a portrait of the general and war criminal Ratko Mladić: it was he who led the massacres in 1995. Bosnians, on the other hand, have written large "Never forget Srebrenica" on the walls of abandoned houses in memory of the victims. In the Genocide Memorial Museum, there is the abject but nationally known graffiti left by a Dutch peacekeeper in 1995, at the end of the four-year siege of the city: "No teeth... ? A moustache... ? Smell like shit... ? Bosnian girl!" ("No teeth... ? A moustache... ? I smell like m****... ? I am a Bosnian girl!) On a lighter note, there are also words like "Svima je potrebna ljubav" ("Everyone needs love"), "Солидарност" ("Solidarity"), "Poštovanje" ("Respect") or big tags to the glory of the local soccer club, FK Guber, a team composed, it should be noted, of both Bosnian and Bosnian-Serb players. The city also inspires foreign artists like the Italian Manu Invisible who left two graphics in the city center. One is easy to understand: the word "Dialogue" with symbols of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The other is more elaborate: "СВИJEST". It is the Bosnian-Croatian term svijest ("consciousness") but with the first three letters written in Serbian Cyrillic: a nod to the rapprochement between the communities.