SREBRENICA, Bosnia And Herzegovina: Thousands are expected to gather in Srebrenica on Thursday to commemorate the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims during the country’s civil war. This comes two months after the United Nations designated July 11 as the “International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.”
8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered when Bosnian Serb forces stormed the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995. Two international courts have declared this atrocity—the biggest massacre in Europe since World War II—to be a genocide.
Despite international recognition, Serbia and Bosnian Serbs continue to downplay the crime. Milorad Dodik, President of Bosnia’s Serbian entity, has repeatedly denied that a genocide occurred, and refuses to recognize the UN resolution.
On Thursday, the remains of 14 more victims, including a 17-year-old boy, will be buried at the memorial cemetery in Potocari. Among them is Beriz Mujic, whose remains were discovered last year, and who will be laid to rest beside his brother Hazim. So far, the remains of 6,988 victims have been buried, most under white tombstones in Potocari. These remains were found in 87 mass graves, and approximately 1,000 victims are still unaccounted for.
The European Union, which Bosnia aspires to join, condemned the atrocity as “one of the darkest moments in modern European history” in a statement on Wednesday. EU officials stressed that there is no place for genocide denial, historical revisionism, or the glorification of war criminals.
The annual commemoration began on Monday with a 100-kilometer march from the village of Nezuk to Srebrenica. Thousands joined the march, retracing the steps of the first survivors who arrived in Nezuk days after the massacre.
Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war between Croats, Muslims, and Serbs claimed approximately 100,000 lives. Nearly three decades later, the nation remains deeply divided along ethnic lines. The Srebrenica commemoration serves as a poignant reminder of the past atrocities and a call for unity and reconciliation in a still fractured region.
