Thousands gathered in Bosnia and Herzegovina to mark 31 years since the Srebrenica genocide, as leaders and activists worldwide used the anniversary to call for resistance against dehumanisation.
On Saturday, mourners, survivors, foreign dignitaries and religious leaders assembled at the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Center to commemorate those killed in 1995. People took part in the annual peace march before 10 newly identified victims were buried.
Bosnian Serb forces overran the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, killing more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys over several days. Srebrenica had been declared a protected "safe area" by the United Nations Security Council two years earlier.
Denis Becirovic, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said honouring those killed was crucial to maintaining stability. "If we fail to preserve the truth about our past, we will have neither a present nor a future," he said.
The Dutch ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Henk van den Dool, said education was key to preventing a repeat of similar atrocities. "One of the common goals we share with the Srebrenica Memorial Center, with the mothers, and with the survivors is to translate this enduring warning into meaningful action. One of the most meaningful and effective ways to do that is through education," he said.
Every year on July 11, newly identified victims are buried at the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Center, as investigators continue to search for remains of people buried in mass graves in surrounding areas. More than a thousand victims remain missing following the genocide, which is widely recognised as the worst atrocity committed in Europe since the Holocaust.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the massacre "a crime against humanity", while Mayor of London Sadiq Khan posted on X that he was "deeply moved" during his trip to Srebrenica last week. "Today, as we stop to remember the victims and families who mourn them, we must also commit ourselves to fighting violence and dehumanisation wherever we encounter it and stopping hatred from taking hold," Khan said.
More than 100,000 people were killed during the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995. The conflict followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia, triggering a series of ethnic conflicts and wars of independence among the Balkan states.
In recent days, campaigners have drawn comparisons between the Srebrenica genocide and Israel's genocidal war on Gaza. Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, decried that senior Israeli officials are yet to be held legally accountable for their crimes. "The United Nations this week remembered the genocide in Bosnia – the 8,000+ Muslim men and boys killed in Srebrenica in July 1995. The leaders of the genocide were convicted. The perpetrators of Israel's genocide in Gaza remain at large," Roth said on X.
Source: www.aljazeera.com