(Srebrenica) Thousands of people gathered in Bosnia on Thursday for ceremonies marking the 29the anniversary of the massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica, two months after the creation of an International Day of Commemoration of this genocide at the UN.
The intercommunal war in Bosnia (1992-95) left nearly 100,000 dead, but the Srebrenica massacre is the only crime from this conflict to have been qualified as genocide by international justice, namely the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
After taking this enclave city, declared a “UN protected area” and home to more than 40,000 people, many of them displaced, on July 11, 1995, the Bosnian Serb forces, led by General Ratko Mladic, carried out mass executions.
In the space of a few days, around 8,000 Bosnian men and boys [musulmans] had been killed there. All the other inhabitants had been expelled. “It’s hard when July comes. They met this fate for the sole reason that they had a name [musulman] “, says Mevlida Hasanovic, praying at the grave of her cousin, who was 18 when he was killed.
The 54-year-old woman lost about a dozen members of her family, all men, including her father and her husband, whose grave is next to her cousin’s. Her remains were buried in two batches, as parts of them were found in two different mass graves. She still hopes that “at least one bone” of one of her brothers will be found, so that she can give him a burial. “Their souls know that we are here, very close to them,” she said.
The ceremony is to include the funeral of 14 victims whose remains have been found and identified since the previous anniversary of the massacre. Among them is a minor, Beriz Mujic, who was 17, and whose brother and father were also killed, according to the Bosnian Institute for Missing Persons.
To date, the remains (often found incomplete) of 6,988 victims have been buried, including 6,751 in a memorial centre in Srebrenica and 237 in other cemeteries, according to a spokeswoman for the Bosnian Institute for Missing Persons, Emza Fazlic.
PHOTO ELVIS BARUKCIC, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Bosnian Muslims bury the coffins of genocide victims at the memorial cemetery in the village of Potocari.
A thousand victims to be found
“The remains of these victims were found in 87 mass graves, but we are still looking for about a thousand people,” said Mr.me Fazlic to AFP.
To cover up their crime, Bosnian Serb forces moved the bodies to other mass graves in a second phase. Kada Sikovic, accompanied by her two daughters and her son, stands by the coffin of her husband, Musan, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Pieces of her jaw were found in 2010, but she refused burial until more remains were found last year.
“Thank God we found some bones,” she told AFP.
She recalls the moment the family was separated in Srebrenica in 1995. “He was crying, he was hugging our daughter, taking the little one in his arms and saying: see you soon.”
The political and military leaders of the Bosnian Serbs during the conflict, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, were sentenced to life imprisonment by the ICTY for the Srebrenica genocide, as were around fifty other perpetrators, by the ICTY and by the Bosnian justice system.
The seriousness of this crime continues to be downplayed by political leaders in the Bosnian Serb entity and Serbia, who reject the description of it as genocide.
“There was no genocide in Srebrenica,” Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik repeated on May 23, shortly before the adoption of the resolution creating a commemorative day by the UN General Assembly, which was criticized by Bosnian Serb leaders and Serbia.
“Despite our differences, we must show respect for the pain and suffering that has befallen many people of all origins and religions in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Mr Dodik insisted on X on Thursday.
Genocide denial has been punishable by six months to five years in prison since 2021. No convictions have been handed down to date.
“There is no place among us for those who deny genocide, try to rewrite history and glorify war criminals,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said in a statement on Wednesday.