Bosnians mark the 19th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre by burying the remains of 175 newly-identified victims of the 1995 genocide.
Nineteen years after the worst crime in modern history, families of the victims on Friday bid their last farewell, laid flowers and prayed for those who were killed in the summer of 1995 in the city.
The remains of over 175 men and boys, found in mass graves and identified through DNA analysis recently, were buried in Srebrenica during the event, bringing the total of identified victims to 6241. A 14-year-old boy is the youngest identified victim of the Srebrenica massacre.
“We came here to honor the victims, we cannot forget what happened. 8372 people were killed here just because they were Muslims. We are here to send a message to Europe and to tell them that they should be ashamed that they allowed this to happen,” said a participant in the anniversary.
Bosnian Prime Minister Nermin Niksic also said he hopes time would heal the wounds, adding that “all those who denied the genocides realized the truth when they look in the mirror.”
The eastern town of Srebrenica was a UN-protected area that was besieged by Serb forces throughout the 1992-95 war for Serb domination in Bosnia.
However, the UN troops offered no resistance when the Serbs overran the majority Muslim town on July 11, 1995, rounding up Srebrenica’s Muslims and killing over 8,000 men and boys. An international court later labeled the killings as genocide.
Workers still continue to excavate for the victims’ bodies from hidden mass graves, and their job is made more difficult because those responsible for the massacre often retrieved the bodies and relocated them elsewhere to hide the crimes.
Many of the remains were torn apart or mixed up by bulldozers, and experts have had to use DNA analysis to put a body together from bones found in locations miles from each other.
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