Thousands mark 1995 Srebrenica genocide which is denied by Serbs, fueling ethnic tensions in Bosnia

(11 Jul 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Potocari-Srebrenica, Bosnia - 11 July 2024
1. People gathered at the memorial ceremony, graves
2. People with flags
3. People gathered
4. Families sitting next to coffins
5. Woman mourning
6. People around coffins
7. Woman’s hand on coffin
8. People next to coffins
9. SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Ajla Efendic, mourner burying two relatives at the ceremony:
"This year, two of my uncles will be buried; two older men who were not carrying weapons, two men who were defenceless. My grandfather, he was pensioner. He was not posing a danger to anyone - he was killed. His body was found in a mass grave."
10. Close of coffins
11. SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Dzevad Efendic, mourner burying two uncles:
"Emotions are always the same, it will never stop. It will never stop until the last day of our lives - our pain feels the same always."
12. People around coffins of victims
13. SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Sejid Mulic, mourner burying brother who was 17 when he was killed:
"This U.N. resolution on Srebrenica is a good thing, but it will not make my life easier. It is good that it is known to the world about the suffering we had here. We were expelled, our houses were burnt, our dearest have been killed. That’s hard. The U.N. resolution is a good act, but it cannot replace what we have been through. But it's good that the world knows, that the world marks this day - so it doesn’t happen again. I would not recommend anyone to go through what I had to go through in life."
14. High representative of international community in Bosnia, Christian Schmidt, laying flowers at memorial
15. Delegation paying respects
16. Coffins on ground
17. Various of prayers
18. Various of people carrying coffins to burial sites
19. Mid of mourners
20. People shovelling mud to bury coffins
21. Wide of crowds
STORYLINE:
Thousands of people from Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica on Thursday for the annual ritual of commemorating the 1995 genocide which Serb officials continue to deny, fueling ethnic tensions and deep divisions within the war-ravaged state.
Twenty-nine years after they were murdered in Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since the Holocaust, the bodies of 13 men and one teenage boy were laid to rest Thursday at a vast and ever-expanding memorial cemetery just outside Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia.
They join more than 6,600 massacre victims already reburied there.
More than 8,000 Bosniak Muslims were estimated to have been killed in the shooting spree by the Bosnian Serb army and police over several days in July 1995.
Relatives of the victims can bury only partial remains of their loved ones as they are typically found scattered over several different mass graves, sometimes miles (kilometers) apart.
The Srebrenica killings were the bloody crescendo of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, which came after the breakup of Yugoslavia unleashed nationalist passions and territorial ambitions that set Bosnian Serbs against the country’s two other main ethnic populations - Croats and Bosniaks, who are mostly Muslim.
The commemoration Thursday came only weeks after the United Nations General Assembly voted to designate July 11 annually as an international day of reflection and commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.
Serbia and Bosnian Serbs strongly opposed its adoption, wrongly claiming it portrays all Serbs as “genocidal people.”
Serb leaders insist the massacre is not genocide, but a “terrible crime." They have also downplayed the number of those killed.
On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serbs overran a U.N.-protected safe area in Srebrenica.
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