The pullout of his Dutch UN battalion from the eastern enclave on 11 July 1995 was followed by the slaying by Serb forces of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys -- Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

Almost 14 years later, Zomer, one of around 600 lightly armed Dutch troops stationed there at the time, said he felt the need to escape his homeland to give something back to Bosnia.

"We have decided to live here," the 40-year-old Zomer said of his wife Renata and two daughters aged nine and 16. "The girls will go to school, learn the language."

"In the Netherlands, the media was constantly reproaching us for letting Serbs massacre Muslims," Zomer said angrily.

"That pressure became unbearable. We were helpless, the UN mandate prevented us from acting."

The idea of making the scene of his trauma his home hatched a year ago after he visited Srebrenica on the 13th anniversary of the massacre.

"I'm moving with my family to Srebrenica to help these people in peace since I could not help them during the war," he told a Crotain weekly, the Globus, in April.
Zomer has acquired four hectares (10 acres) of land on a hill overlooking a cemetery where the remains of more than 3,000 victims of the atrocity have been buried after forensic experts exhumed them from dozens of mass graves.

 Dutch locksmith and ex-UN peacekeeper Rob Zomer stokes a fire in front of his temporary home on 25 May 2009

A locksmith back in the Netherlands, Zomer plans to build a house on the plot and start up a tourism business.

His wife and daughters have visited the site but are waiting back home until construction is completed before moving into their new Bosnian residence.

The Dutchman hopes to create jobs in what is one of Europe's poorest countries by building an inn, raising domestic animals and planting a fruit and vegetable garden.

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