Thousands gather in Srebrenica on 30th anniversary of Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since WWII

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) – Thousands of people from Bosnia and around the world gathered in Srebrenica to mark the 30th anniversary of a 1995 massacre there of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim boys and men, which has been acknowledged as Europe’s only genocide after the Holocaust.

Seven newly identified victims of the massacre, including two 19-year-old men, will be laid to rest in a collective funeral at a vast cemetery near Srebrenica Friday, next to more than 6,000 victims already buried there. Such funerals are held annually for the victims who are still being unearthed from dozens of mass graves around the town.

Relatives of the victims, however, often can bury only partial remains of their loved ones as they are typically found in several different mass graves, sometimes kilometers (miles) apart. Such was the case of Mirzeta Karic, who was waiting to bury her father.

“Thirty years of search and we are burying a bone,” she said, crying by her father’s coffin which was wrapped in green cloth in accordance with Islamic tradition.

“I think it would be easier if I could bury all of him. What can I tell you, my father is one of the 50 (killed) from my entire family.”

July 11, 1995, is the day when the killings started after Bosnian Serb fighters overran the eastern Bosnian enclave in the final months of the interethnic war in the Balkan country.

After taking control of the town that was a protected U.N. safe zone during the war, Bosnian Serb fighters separated Bosniak Muslim men and boys from their families and brutally executed them in just several days. The bodies were then dumped in mass graves around Srebrenica which they later dug up with bulldozers, scattering the remains among other burial sites to hide the evidence of their war crimes.

The U.N. General Assembly last year adopted a resolution to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide on the July 11 anniversary.

Scores of international officials and dignitaries were present in Srebrenica for the commemoration ceremonies and the funeral Friday.

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said he was personally touched because U.N. troops from the Netherlands were based in Srebrenica when Bosnian Serbs stormed the town.

“I feel humble to be here,” he said. “And I see to what extent commemorating Srebrenica genocide is important.”

In an emotional speech, Munira Subasic, who heads the respected Mothers of Srebrenica association, urged Europe and the world to “help us fight against hatred, against injustice and against killings.”

Subasic, who lost her husband and youngest son in Srebrenica along with more than 20 relatives, told Europe to “wake up.”

“As I stand here many mothers in Ukraine and Palestine are going through what we went through in 1995,” Subasic said, referring to ongoing conflicts. “It’s the 21st century but instead of justice, fascism has woken up.”

On the eve of the anniversary, an exhibition was inaugurated displaying personal items belonging to the victims that were found in the mass graves over the years.

The conflict in Bosnia erupted in 1992, when Bosnian Serbs took up arms in a rebellion against the country’s independence from the former Yugoslavia and with an aim to create their own state and eventually unite with neighboring Serbia. More than 100,000 people were killed and millions displaced before a U.S.-brokered peace agreement was reached in 1995.

Bosnia remains ethnically split while both Bosnian Serbs and neighboring Serbia refuse to acknowledge that the massacre in Srebrenica was a genocide despite rulings by two U.N. courts. Bosnian Serb political and military leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, along with many others, were convicted and sentenced for genocide.

Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic expressed condolences on X while calling the Srebrenica massacre a “terrible crime.” Vucic added “we cannot change the past but we must change the future.”