On the third and final day, Dizdarevic and most of those around him could not contain their emotions as they reached Potocari, the site of the memorial to Srebrenica victims.
In the grassy valley dotted with row upon row of white marble tombstones, are the remnants of the gray slab concrete buildings where the UN Dutch battalion had been stationed to protect Bosniaks during the war.
But in July 1995, the battalion was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces, leading to the bloodshed that ensued.
Reaching the site where thousands were brutally killed brought “overwhelming sadness” to Dizdarevic.
“It was very emotional,” he said.
But Dizdarevic was also awash with relief – not only from the physical toll of the march being over, but also from the emotional weight of having walked in the footsteps of victims who never made it to safety.
“It was very important for every one of us to finish this march,” he said.
“This remembrance should lead to a prevention of potential future genocide.”
As he and his companions set up one final camp in Potocari, before the memorial event there the next day on the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, Dizdarevic pondered what justice for its victims looks like.
“The search for justice … is a very difficult process … Even more difficult is that the Serbian society … [is] very in favour of this genocide,” he said.
“I am afraid that Serbian society – they did not undergo this catharsis [of] saying, ‘Yes, we did this and we are guilty, sorry.’ [On the] contrary, they are very proud of it … or they deny it.”
In the years since, the International Court of Justice and courts in the Balkans have sentenced almost 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials collectively to more than 700 years in prison for the genocide.
But many of the accused remain unpunished, and genocide denial is rampant, especially among political leaders in Serbia and the Serb-majority entity of Republika Srpska.
Milorad Dodik, the entity’s current leader, whose image appears on billboards flashing the three-finger salute, a symbol of Serb nationalism, has dismissed the Srebrenica genocide as a “fabricated myth”.
Still, Dizdarevic has held on to hope, a feeling renewed during the march as he watched countless young people take part, many of them born after the Bosnian war.
“What is, for me, very important, [is] that the young men and women who participate in this march understand … they should play an active role in the prevention of future genocide by creating a positive environment in their societies,” he said.
On July 11, the day after the march ended, Dizdarevic and his group joined thousands in Potocari to mark the sombre anniversary, where the remains of seven newly identified victims were laid to rest.
There, they stood in solemn silence as the coffins were lowered into freshly dug graves, soon to be marked with new marble headstones, joining the more than 6,000 others already laid to rest.
Reporting for this article was made possible by the NGO Islamic Relief.
