SREBRENICA – Tens of thousands of grieving Bosnian Muslims gathered yesterday to bury the remains of 755 newly identified victims killed when Bosnian Serbs overran the eastern town of Srebrenica exactly 15 years ago.
An army led by Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic seized Srebrenica on July 11th, 1995, and went on a week-long killing spree as UN troops protecting the town stood by. Around 8,000 Muslims were killed in what is now seen as Europe’s worst atrocity since the second World War. Those who tried to escape were hunted down and killed. Mladic remains at large.
Yesterday, men passed green-draped coffins from hand to hand towards freshly dug graves in the Potocari suburb of Srebrenica. Sobbing women recited prayers as they kneeled among rows of white marble gravestones. The ceremony was attended by Serbian president Boris Tadic.
“I have nothing left to lose,” Hatidza Mehmedovic (58), said through tears. She came to bury her husband and two sons, killed when they were aged 18 and 21. “Now I can only fight for justice to be served.”
A Bosnian Croat man, Rudolf Hren, shared the fate of thousands of his non-Serb neighbours when he was killed in 1995. He was the only victim to have a Catholic burial at yesterday’s funeral.
“Rudolf is buried among the friends he stayed with until the last day,” said his mother, Barbara Hren, whose other son was also killed in Srebrenica.
The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has indicted Mladic and his political chief, Radovan Karadzic, for genocide in Srebrenica. Karadzic is on trial, but denies all counts of the indictment, including what occurred in Srebrenica. Mladic is believed to be hiding in Serbia.
Serbs dumped the victims’ bodies in mass graves, and these were later dug out with bulldozers and moved to smaller graves in an attempt to cover up the crime. More than 3,700 identified victims have now been buried in the special memorial cemetery.
Above the cemetery, survivors, helped by German non-governmental group Centre for Political Beauty, put up a placard which said “UN Pillar of Shame” – the site of a future monument.
The monument will be made of more than 16,000 shoes, representing the victims, and will be pierced by bullet holes. The NGO’s spokeswoman, Merima Spahic, said it will serve “as a metaphor of the immense betrayal of the UN in Bosnia for failing to protect the victims”. – (Reuters)