Anniversary of Srebrenica massacre

Anniversary of Srebrenica massacre

The remains of 465 identified victims were also laid to rest today. Thus far, about 2,500 victims have been buried at the memorial.

The religious ceremony was performed by the leader of Bosnia’s Islamic community Mustafa Cerić.

“We pray to God to take away the sword from the aggressors, and give the weak the gift of faith in truth and justice,” he said.

“We ask you, God, to make sadness hope, revenge justice, and mothers’ destiny a prayer that no one again should live through a Srebrenica,” Cerić said.

Haris Silajdžić told the gathering that “innocent victims fell due to an idea unworthy of men”.

“All of us need to do everything in order to prevent this idea from being realized, to stop Bosnia-Herzegovina from being the way the perpetrators of the crime wanted to make it,” he said.

Silajdžić said he hoped Bosnia will be “good for all who live there” and that the world will help build “such a Bosnia where crime will not be rewarded”.

Chief of Srebrenica’s municipal administration Abdurahman Malkić said Srebrenica was a “joint defeat that must never happen again to anyone”.

Malkić spoke against silence about the crimes and added that for the sake of building trust and fighting oblivion, “justice needs to be revealed and names of perpetrators of the crime published”.

“The International Court of Justice ruled that it was the Republic of Srpska police and army who carried out the crime in Srebrenica,” Malkić said.

Malkić added the massacre was made possible by “the world’s silence and the cruelty of individuals”.

According to the Hague Tribunal's indictment, Bosnian Serb forces, under the command of General Ratko Mladić, systematically killed 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys and deported some 30,000 women and children.

The siege of Srebrenica began on July 6, 1995, and ended before Mladić arrived to the town on July 19, 1995.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the massacre constituted for genocide.

The commemoration Wednesday was attended by a number of international officials, including Special International Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina Miroslav Lajčak and Chief Hague Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.

The Serb member of the tripartite presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina Nebojša Radmanović stated earlier that he would not attend the ceremony. Representatives of official Belgrade were also missing from the commemoration.