Bosnian Muslims on Thursday began commemorating the Srebrenica massacre, which they were subjected to during the civil war in the country in 1995, two months after the United Nations designated an annual day to commemorate this genocide.
Thousands of Muslims flocked to the Srebrenica cemetery to pray for the souls of their dead, and to remind the world of the unprecedented massacre they were subjected to, in which thousands of innocent civilians were killed.
This anniversary coincides with the burial of the remains of 14 other victims, including a 17-year-old boy, in a memorial cemetery in Potocari outside Srebrenica, and the remains of another victim whose remains were found in the area last year, where so far the remains of 6,988 victims of the massacre have been buried.
In a related context, a spokeswoman for the Institute of Missing Persons in Bosnia said in statements that the remains were found in 87 mass graves, pointing out that they were still searching for about a thousand other missing persons.
T
he event is organized to commemorate July 11, 1995, when Bosnian Serb forces led by Ratko Mladic took control of the city of Srebrenica, a few months before the end of the three-year civil war in Bosnia. In the following days, Bosnian Serb forces killed about eight thousand Muslim men and teenagers, in a crime that the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice described as genocide.
Years earlier, a United Nations court sentenced Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and his army commander Ratko Mladic to life imprisonment for war crimes, including the genocide in Srebrenica, stressing that to cover up the crime, Bosnian Serb forces transported bodies of victims to secondary mass graves.
In late May, the United Nations General Assembly approved designating an international day to commemorate the genocide in Srebrenica, despite the strong opposition of the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia, as Milorad Dodik, head of the Serb entity in Bosnia, repeatedly
denied that genocide had occurred, saying that his administration would not recognize the decision.
The European Union (EU), which Bosnia aspires to join, last Wednesday described these atrocities as “one of the darkest moments in Europe’s modern history.” EU Foreign Policy Coordinator Josep Borrell and European Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varheli said in a joint statement, “No.” ” a place among us for those who deny genocide and try to rewrite history and glorify war criminals.” The war in Bosnia took place between (1992 – 1995) between Croats, Muslims, and Serbs, and claimed the lives of thousands.
Source: Qatar News Agency