Srebrenica Victims Buried at Genocide Anniverary Commemoration

Crowds of mourners gathered on Wednesday at the Memorial Centre in Potocari near Srebrenica for the burial of 35 victims of the Srebrenica genocide who are being laid to rest at a ceremony to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the massacres.

According to police reports, 177 buses and more than 2,000 vehicles arrived in Srebrenica on Wednesday morning, bringing people to the commemoration

Among the victims being buried was a pregnant woman who was killed in the massacres, Remzija Dudic, along with her husband Nijazija. Their remains were found in a mass grave in the Vlasenica area in 2016.

Two teenagers who were 16 and 17 years old at the time of their deaths were also being buried at the Memorial Centre.

One of the mothers of the victims, Hajra Alic, said she will bury just one bone of her son Muhamed – all that has been found of the teenager’s remains so far.

“His grave and nisan [Muslim headstone] should be marked, so that I at least know where that one bone is,” Alic said.

Among those attending Wednesday’s commemoration were participants in the annual Peace March from Nezuk near Tuzla to Srebrenica, which retraces the route used by Srebrenica men and boys to flee the enclave in July 1995 as Bosnian Serb forces moved in.

Among the participants of this year’s Peace March was the US ambassador to Sarajevo, Maureen Cormack.

Politicians from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former Yugoslav region, as well as officials from the international community, attended the commemoration.

Theodor Meron, the president of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, said that it is important to maintain remembrance of the victims of Srebrenica.

“We are all keepers of a vital, if fragile flame: responsible today, and for all the days to come, for ensuring that the memories of the fathers and brothers, the husbands and sons, and all the other victims of those terrible events live on, that the lessons of Srebrenica are never forgotten, and that we each do our part to spread the light of truth and to push back against the darkness of indifference and denial,” Meron said in a statement.

So far a total of 6,575 genocide victims have been buried at the Memorial Centre in Potocari.

According to verdicts handed down by the Hague Tribunal and the Bosnian state court, more than 7,000 men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces in the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995.

A baby and a woman in her nineties are the youngest and oldest victims of Srebrenica to have been buried so far.

The mass killings were followed by an operation by Bosnian Serb forces aimed at concealing the crimes in secondary and tertiary mass graves.

The Hague Tribunal and domestic courts have sentenced 45 people to 699 years in prison – plus three life sentences – for genocide, crimes against humanity and other offences against Bosniaks from Srebrenica in July 1995.

There are still several ongoing cases, as well as cases which are not being prosecuted.

At least nine Serbs suspected of genocide and other crimes in Srebrenica have fled Bosnia to enjoy refuge from prosecution in Serbia, where they remain free despite alleged involvement in the massacres.