Today we mark 25 years since the Srebrenica Genocide in which 8372 Bosniak civilians were brutally murdered. They were killed after Serb forces attacked the UN "safe area" of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995.
#Srebrenica25 #SrebrenicaGenocide
#Srebrenica25 #SrebrenicaGenocide
The UN Security Council had declared Srebrenica a "safe area" in the spring of 1993. However, Serb troops led by Ratko Mladić - who later found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide - overran the UN zone that was supposed to be protected by Dutch troops.
The Dutch troops failed to act as Serb forces occupied the area, killing about 2000 men and boys on July 11 alone. Some 15 thousand Srebrenica people fled into the surrounding mountains, but Serb troops hunted down and killed 6000 of them in the forests.
Just hours before the genocide started, Ratko Mladić handed out candy to Muslim children rounded up at the town’s square and assured them that all would be fine - even patting one child on the head. That creepy image is forever imprinted in the minds of Srebrenica survivors.
It was the worst atrocity in Europe since the World War II, 50 years after the world said “never again” to the horrors of the Holocaust. Thousands were systematically murdered and buried in mass graves. The victims, mostly Muslim, were selected on the basis of their identity.
The Srebrenica genocide was the planned, systematic, and industrialised conclusion of a four year campaign of forced deportation, torture, mass murder and systematic sexual violence by Bosnian Serb forces in service of their goal to create a “Greater Serbia”.
Although Srebrenica is the only mass killing in Balkan wars that has been officially ruled as genocide by the international courts, this atrocity was only the final act in a much broader genocidal strategy - euphemistically called “ethnic cleansing”.
Mass graves is a term that was redefined in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A new term emerged here as well, tertiary mass graves. Srebrenica victims were discovered in more than a hundred locations. Remains of one person could even be found in four different mass graves.
Nurdin was 11 and his brother Hajrudin had only 9 years when they were killed. Forensics were not able to figure out which of the only three bones found belongs to whom, so they were buried in a joint grave.
The youngest victim of the genocide was Fatima Muhić, she was only two days old. Remains of Fatima were found within the Factory of Batteries in Potočari, after a testimony by members of the Dutch battalion who revealed that there is a mass grave there in late 2011.
Today the remains of nine victims will be buried. None of the 33 coffins of genocide victims there were buried last year didn't contain full skeletal remains. At this moment, there are more than 6700 victims that have been laid to rest at the cemetery at the memorial centre.
There is another issue that families of the victims are facing today - genocide denial. People that commited these crimes are still freely walking and new generations have been taught by perpetrators to hate and not to give up on their goals. We can't claim we have safe future.
We need to be aware of the truth, and never get tired while telling the truth. It was GENOCIDE. They had plans, they had systematic approach. Victims had only one sin. They had different name.
We need every day to remind people what is the only truth because the voice of the denial is very loud as well. A mother who lost six sons deserves a piece of justice.
On that account, please follow and support the work of @SrebrenicaUK and @SrebrenicaMC.
On that account, please follow and support the work of @SrebrenicaUK and @SrebrenicaMC.
