Thousands gathered in Srebrenica on July 11 to commemorate the 1995 massacre, and to bury 19 newly identified victims. It may be noted that more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslims were killed by the Bosniak Serb Forces in Srebrenica, a town located in the easternmost part of Republika Srpska, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in just 11 days (July 11-22, 1995). The 1995 Srebrenica Massacre is Europe’s only acknowledged Genocide since the Second World War.

Twenty-six years ago, the Serb Forces had executed 8,372 Bosniak Muslims, mainly men and boys, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The local authorities recently found remains of 19 victims, including 16 men, two teenage boys and a woman, in mass graves and identified them through DNA analysis. Those remains were reburied this year at a memorial cemetery, where more than 6,600 other victims had already been reburied. A senior Government official confirmed the news, saying that Sarajevo gives a dignified burial to newly identified victims each year on July 11.

Kadefa Rizvanovic, who had lost 20 male relatives in the genocide, has said that she still has not found the remains of them. “As soon as I got up and had coffee, I came to visit the graves of my husband and his brother, to offer a prayer. My paternal and maternal uncles are also buried here. I offered a prayer for them and for all the victims of Srebrenica,” she stressed.

So far, approximately 6,700 victims have been buried at the memorial cemetery. Although the concerned authorities have identified more than 1,000 partial remains, their families are reluctant to bury them. They hope that the authorities will find more remains. Nearly 1,000 victims are still considered missing.

The Serb Forces had executed the victims when they tried to flee into nearby forest after Srebrenica was occupied by the former on July 11, 1995, just before the end of Bosnia’s 1992-95 Fratricidal War. Later, the Forces ploughed those bodies into hastily dug mass graves before excavating with bulldozers in an attempt to hide evidence of the crimes. The Srebrenica Genocide was the outcome of the bloody Civil War between the country’s three main ethnic factions – Serbs, Croats and Bosnians – after the break-up of Yugoslavia. More than 100,000 people were killed in the conflict, before a peace deal was struck in 1995.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das