Dr. Eric Dachy was working in the former Yugoslavia with an international aid organization in 1993 when he joined a United Nations peacekeeping convoy to the town of Srebrenica, then under siege by Bosnian Serb forces.
Inside Srebrenica, the Bosniak population had been without electricity, running water, adequate food, and medical supplies for months.
Dachy knew that his medical skills and the supplies he was bringing to Bosnian doctors would not matter if the Serbs took the town.
When the United Nations declared Srebrenica a "safe haven" on April 16, 1993, largely as a result of the UN convoy's trip, the Serb offensive was halted. Dachy stayed in Srebrenica for three days and shortly thereafter helped establish a permanent international medical presence there.
Two years later, however, Bosnian Serb forces launched a new offensive to capture Srebrenica. They killed an estimated 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, massacres deemed genocide by an international court in 2001.
