SREBRENICA (Bosnia), July 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Solemn mourners began gathering in Srebrenica on Thursday (Jul 11) to remember the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims, less two months after the UN established a memorial day to mark the genocide.
On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces captured the eastern Bosnian town – which was then a UN-protected enclave – and killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the following days.
It was the worst massacre in Europe since World War II has been ruled a genocide by two international courts.
“It’s hard when July comes. They ended up like this only because they had a different (Muslim) name,” said Mevlida Hasanovic as she prayed at the tomb of her cousin, who was 18 when he was killed.
Hasanovic lost a dozen male relatives in the massacre including her father and husband, whose grave is next to her cousin’s.
His remains were buried on two occasions since they were found in two different mass graves.
The 54-year-old woman is still looking for the remains of a brother to be found, “at least one bone”, to bury him, she said.
“Their souls know that we are here next to them. When I get here, I feel as if we just parted ways in Srebrenica.”
In May, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring July 11 the “International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica”.
The resolution was fiercly opposed by Serbia and Bosnian Serbs, who continue to play down the crime.
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has repeatedly denied a genocide occurred, and says his administration would not recognise the resolution.
A UN court sentenced Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic and his army chief Ratko Mladic to life in prison for war crimes including the Srebrenica genocide.
Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed approximately 100,000 lives.
Nearly three decades after the war ended, the Balkan nation remains deeply divided along ethnic lines.
On Thursday, the remains of 14 more victims of the bloodshed, including a 17-year-old boy, will be buried at a memorial cemetery in Potocari, just outside Srebrenica.
Beriz Mujic, whose remains were found in the Srebrenica region last year, will be laid to rest next to his brother Hazim.
So far, the remains, often incomplete, of 6,988 Srebrenica victims have been buried, the overwhelming majority of them under white tombstones in Potocari.
The remains were found in 87 mass graves, and a spokeswoman for Bosnia’s institute for missing persons said that they are still looking for around 1,000 people.
To cover up the crime, Bosnian Serb forces moved the bodies of the victims to so-called secondary mass graves.
On Wednesday, the European Union, which Bosnia aspires to join, called the atrocity “one of the darkest moments in modern European history”.
“There is no place amongst us for those who deny genocide, attempt to rewrite history, and glorify war criminals,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and EU enlargement commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said in a joint statement.
The annual commemoration ceremonies started on Monday with a 100km march towards Srebrenica.
Several thousand people joined the march from the village of Nezuk, where the first survivors arrived days after the massacre. — NNN-AGENCIES
