Srebrenica Genocide Anniversary Peace March and Commemoration

Srebrenica Genocide Anniversary Peace March

Surviving family members and children of the victims of the Srebrenica genocide joined hundreds of people in a peace march in Bosnia and Herzegovina to mark the anniversary of the 1995 massacre. Thousands of participants reached Potočari after three days of retracing the route many Bosniaks took to find refuge, escaping from the eastern Bosnian town further to the country’s north. This year’s march was particularly challenging due to the intense heat and difficult terrain. According to organizers, around 6,000 people, including 250 children, walked this year. One participant passed away during the march, organizers said, adding that they did not want to publicize his identity until after the event.

Commemoration and Remembrance

Dozens of human rights activists held banners that said “We will never forget the genocide in Srebrenica” and the number “8372” referring to the number of victims. In May, the United Nations approved a resolution establishing an international day of reflection and commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide when Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys over three days in July 1995. The vote in the 193-member General Assembly was 84-19, with 68 nations abstaining. Neighboring Serbia was vehemently against the resolution, claiming the events in Srebrenica were not genocide but a “terrible crime.”

Justice for Srebrenica Victims

The Srebrenica genocide remains among the worst atrocities committed during the Yugoslav dissolution wars of the 1990s. After 45 years of peace under President Josip Broz Tito’s rule, Yugoslavia, comprised of six republics at the time, disintegrated in a series of wars that engulfed Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. In Bosnia, the war saw the three main ethnic groups — Bosnian Serbs, who are Eastern Orthodox, Catholic Bosnian Croats, and Bosniaks, who are Muslim — pitted against each other along ethnic lines.

• On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serbs overran a UN-protected safe area in Srebrenica, separating more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from their families and massacring them.
• The Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić were convicted of genocide in Srebrenica by a special UN tribunal, with close to 50 Bosnian Serb officials sentenced to over 700 years in prison for the killings.
• Despite these convictions, a significant number of Serbian and Bosnian Serb officials continue to celebrate Karadžić and Mladić as national heroes, downplaying or denying the Srebrenica genocide.