FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Today, July 11, commemorates the 29th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This is the first anniversary since the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution declaring July 11 as the International Day of Remembrance of the Srebrenica massacre.
Many local and foreign officials were present at the commemoration ceremony.
"It is imperative that society rejects any form of minimizing the genocide in Srbrenica and this is the duty of all of us. We need additional efforts here," said Christian Schmidt, High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Family members of the victims gathered at the Potocari memorial center and expressed their pain for the loss of their loved ones.
"Imagine having a whole family and losing them in one day….I was only 19 years old. This pain cannot be understood by anyone who has not experienced it", said Jasna Tuholjkiq, family member of one of the victims.
"It's a long story. I survived because of the carelessness of the Serbian soldiers. They refused to check whether all had been killed. I was injured. I managed to leave and crawl away from the crime scene," added Nedžad Avdić, a survivor of the Srabrenica massacre.
"During an ambush, my brother and I stayed all night alone and I haven't seen my father since. At dawn, when we started to run away, we got separated and I never saw my brother again", said Mirza Bashiq, a survivor of the Srabrenica massacre.
In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army invaded Srebrenica, previously declared a safe zone, brutally killing thousands of Muslim men and teenagers.
The remainder of the Bosniak population present in Srebrenica, some 25,000 women, children and the elderly, were forcibly moved out of the enclave. This was the largest massacre in Europe since the Holocaust.
The genocide left deep emotional scars on survivors, victims' families and Bosnian society, creating lasting obstacles to reconciliation between the country's various ethnic groups.
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