BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA: Thousands gather in Srebrenica to attend memorial ceremony for 8,000 Bosnian Muslims massacred by Serb forces in 1995 and bury 409 newly-identified victims

Record ID: 567033

  • Title: BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA: Thousands gather in Srebrenica to attend memorial ceremony for 8,000 Bosnian Muslims massacred by Serb forces in 1995 and bury 409 newly-identified victims
  • Date: 11th July 2013
  • Summary: SREBRENICA, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA (JULY 11, 2013) (REUTERS) PEOPLE PASSING VIDEO DISPLAY SHOWING COFFINS WITH REMAINS OF NEWLY IDENTIFIED VICTIMS TOMB STONES, PEOPLE WALKING AROUND GRAVES, PREPARING GRAVES PEOPLE WALKING NEAR OPEN GRAVES PEOPLE LOOKING AT NAMES ON GRAVES WOMAN SITTING IN FRONT OF OPEN GRAVE WOMAN PRAYING IN FRONT OF GRAVE PEOPLE WALKING IN FRONT OF FRESHLY DUG UP GRAVES AND GRAVE STONES WOMAN SITTING BETWEEN TWO GRAVES WOMAN PRAYING NAMES ON GRAVE STONES MAN KNEELING AND PRAYING IN FRONT OF COFFIN WITH REMAINS OF BABY BORN IN DUTCH COMPOUND WHO DIED THREE DAYS AFTER BIRTH, MORE COFFINS IN BACKGROUND COFFIN WITH REMAINS OF BABY GIRL WITH WHITE ROSES ON IT WOMAN KNEELING BETWEEN COFFINS AND CRYING WOMAN HUGGING COFFIN AND CRYING WOMAN HUGGING COFFIN, PEOPLE LOOKING FOR COFFINS OF THEIR FAMILY MEMBERS YOUNG WOMAN WITH TEARS IN HER EYES STANDING NEXT TO A FAMILY MEMBER ANOTHER YOUNG WOMAN CRYING TWO WOMEN SITTING NEXT TO COFFINS AND CRYING GRAVE STONE WITH NAMES AND RED ROSE GRAVE STONE WITH NAMES, PEOPLE WALKING PEOPLE WALKING AMONG GRAVES THREE WOMEN SITTING IN FRONT OF OPEN GRAVE (SOUNDBITE) (Bosnian) WOMAN PREPARING TO BURY HER TWO SONS, 62-YEAR-OLD RAMIZA SILJKOVIC, SAYING: "They called us saying a few bones only were found and asked us if we would like to bury those bones, and we said yes. I want to do at least something for them while I am still alive. I don't know what else to do." MAN DIGGING GRAVE (SOUNDBITE) (Bosnian) WOMAN PREPARING TO BURY REMAINS OF HER BROTHER, 28-YEAR-OLD SANELA SALIHOVIC, SAYING "On the one hand, it is easier when we know where they are and we have a place to come to, but on the other this is so difficult. But the heart has to stay strong and endure whatever it has to endure." WOMAN SITTING IN FRONT OF OPEN GRAVE AND CRYING SHOVELS AND GRAVES IN BACKGROUND
  • Embargoed: 26th July 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Topics: Crime,Conflict,History,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5B4HZC069F31RB4WC98G91JXK
  • Story Text: Thousands of mourners flocked to a memorial just outside the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica on Thursday (July 11) to bury 409 newly-identified victims, recovered and identified 18 years after Europe's worst massacre since World War Two.
    Prayers echoed from loudspeakers as relatives and friends searched for names on cemetery maps and wooden grave markers that will be replaced with white marble tombstones.
    Among those to be buried were 44 boys, aged between 14 and 18, and a baby girl who died in the United Nations compound, three days after birth. Their bodies were dug out from nameless death pits and recently identified through DNA analysis.
    Ramiza Siljkovic, 62, said she lost five family members in the massacre, as she knelt by two freshly-dug graves waiting for the coffins that carry the remains of her two sons.
    "They called us saying only a few bones were found and asked us if we would like to bury those bones, and we said yes. I want to do at least something for them while I am still alive. I don't know what else to do," she said.
    Only a handful of her two sons' bones were recovered from two mass graves.
    Srebrenica was under the protection of the U.N. during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war but lightly armed Dutch troops had been swept aside by the Bosnian Serb troops, commanded by general Ratko Mladic, who overran the town on July 11, 1995.
    During a week-long killing spree, around 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed. Thousands tried to flee through the mountains towards the government-held territory but many of them never made it as they were hunted down by Serb forces.
    The slaughter, in the final months of the war that claimed 100,000 lives, aimed to ensure there were no Muslims to fight back or claim back Serb-occupied land or homes in the future.
    During the burial ceremony, men will pass green draped coffins from hand to hand towards the graves in the grim roll-call, which will be repeated each year until all the missing are found and buried. The Thursday funeral raised the number of graves at Potocari to 6,066.
    "On the one hand it is easier when we know where they are and we have a place to come to, but on the other this is so difficult. But the heart has to stay strong and endure whatever it has to endure," said 28-year-old Sanela Salihovic, who came to bury her brother who was 16 when he was killed in the Srebrenica woods. She said her father remained unaccounted for.
    Mladic and his political chief Radovan Karadzic are on trial before the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague for genocide over Srebrenica and the siege of Sarajevo, but both have denied charges.
    The tribunal last year struck down one of the two genocide charges Karadzic faced, saying he must stand trial for his involvement in the Srebrenica genocide but that he was not responsible for genocide in other Bosnian municipalities.
    In a ruling later on Thursday (July 11), appeals judges will decide whether to reinstate the latter charges, as requested by the prosecutor.
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