Sarajevo bids farewell to 10 Srebrenica genocide victims ahead of July 11 burial
The remains of 10 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide were bid farewell in an emotional ceremony in Sarajevo on Thursday before being transported to the Potocari Memorial Cemetery for burial.
The victims were killed by Bosnian Serb forces under the command of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic during the genocide in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica.
The funeral convoy departed from the central Bosnian town of Visoko in the morning and passed through Sarajevo's Marshal Tito and Mula Mustafe Baseskija streets under police escort.
In keeping with tradition, the convoy stopped in front of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency building, where state officials and hundreds of Sarajevo residents laid flowers on the vehicles carrying the coffins and offered prayers. Some mourners were seen in tears.
Before leaving the capital, the convoy also paused at the Children Killed During the Siege of Sarajevo Memorial and the Markale marketplace, the site of two major massacres during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.
The farewell ceremony was attended by state officials, relatives of the victims, numerous citizens, and Turkish Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina Emin Akseki.
Coffins to be buried on July 11
The remains are expected to arrive in Potocari on Thursday evening, where they will be kept overnight in the former battery factory that served as a Dutch UN peacekeeping base during the war.
The coffins will be buried after funeral prayers on July 11 during ceremonies marking the 31st anniversary of the genocide.
The youngest victim to be buried this year is Senad Jusic, who was 20 when he was killed, while the oldest is Ramo Dautovic, who was 56.
The 10 victims to be laid to rest are Senad Jusic, Muriz Barakovic, Hamed Music, Ramo Alic, Muhidin Osmanovic, Huso Cerimovic, Nuko Nukic, Ahmet Guster, Asim Kunic, and Ramo Dautovic.
The genocide
On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces under the command of Ratko Mladic captured Srebrenica, a UN-protected safe area. Bosniak civilians who had sought refuge with Dutch UN peacekeepers were handed over to the Serb forces.
While women and children were allowed to reach Bosniak-controlled territory, at least 8,372 Bosniak men and boys were executed in forests, factories and warehouses before being buried in mass graves.
In 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recognized the killings in and around Srebrenica as genocide, based on evidence presented by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Since the war, victims whose remains have been recovered from mass graves and identified through DNA analysis have been buried each year on July 11 at the Potocari Memorial Cemetery.
So far, 6,772 victims have been buried at Potocari, while 250 others were laid to rest in local cemeteries at the request of their families. More than 1,000 victims of the genocide remain missing.
The remains of identified genocide victims have been recovered from 150 locations, including 77 mass graves.
AA
