Bosnia to bid farewell to 14 newly identified Srebrenica genocide victims

BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) – Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities have finalized arrangements to bid farewell to 14 more victims of the Srebrenica genocide on the 29th anniversary of the atrocity.

Green coffins with the remains of the victims are ready in Visoko from where they will depart on July 9 for the village of Potocari to be buried on July 11 at the collective funeral.

Every July 11, newly identified victims of Europe’s worst genocide since World War II, which killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys, are buried in an Islamic memorial cemetery in Potocari in eastern Bosnia.

Thousands of visitors from various countries will attend the funeral and burials. After this year’s funeral, the number of burials in the cemetery will rise to 6,765.

The bodies of slain Muslims, whose identification has been completed, are kept in the Visoko City Cemetery.

The UN in late May passed a resolution to designate July 11 as Srebrenica Genocide Remembrance Day, with overwhelming support from the General Assembly.

The resolution, spearheaded by Germany with co-sponsorship from more than 40 countries, called for July 11 to be declared “International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.”

The Day of Mourning for Srebrenica will be marked by a mandatory display of the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina at half-mast on the buildings of legislative, executive and judicial authorities, public institutions, and other legal entities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed when Bosnian Serb forces attacked the UN “safe area” of Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the presence of Dutch troops tasked with acting as international peacekeepers.

Serb forces besieged Srebrenica, trying to seize territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form their own state.

The UN Security Council had declared Srebrenica a “safe area” in the spring of 1993. Serb troops, however, led by Gen. Ratko Mladic — later sentenced to life for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide — overran the UN zone.

The Dutch troops failed to act and Serb forces occupied the area, killing 2,000 men and boys. Some 15,000 Srebrenica people fled to the surrounding mountains but Serb troops hunted them down and killed 6,000 in the forests.

The bodies of genocide victims were discovered in 570 different locations throughout the country.

– More than 100,000 people killed during war in Bosnia –

The Serb Republic of predominantly Muslim Bosnia and Herzegovina was established as a federal structure on Dec 21, 1991.

Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence after a referendum held in 1992 which led to a violent backlash from the ethnic orthodox Christian Serbs of Bosnia, sparking a three-year long war in which the genocide of Bosniak Muslims was committed.

The war in Bosnia Herzegovina lasted until December 14, 1995, and more than 100,000 people were killed, while 2 million had to migrate.

The fate of approximately 7,000 who disappeared during the war remains unknown.