Thirty years since the horror of Srebrenica: over 8,000 civilians massacred by Bosnian Serbs

Thirty years ago, the horror of Srebrenica, the Bosnian town that was the scene of the worst massacre of civilians in Europe since the Second World War.

It was July 11, 1995 when the Bosnian Serb army commanded by General Ratko Mladic (now 83 years old, sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes) committed an indiscriminate massacre – preceded by rape, torture and mutilation – of Muslim men, women and children, in one of the darkest pages of the conflict that marked the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation.

The United Nations has proclaimed July 11 as the International Day of Remembrance for the Srebrenica Genocide , and today official ceremonies were held at the Potocari Memorial Cemetery , on the outskirts of the martyred town, with the participation of numerous local political and religious leaders, as well as representatives of Europe and EU institutions, together with the families and relatives of the victims.

Of the more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim civilians exterminated in a few days in July 1995, 6,765 of their remains have been identified . The remains of another 250 victims were buried outside the Potocari complex, in other local cemeteries, at the request of their families, while another thousand victims remain missing today.

Just today, during the commemorations, the remains of seven more victims of the genocide, identified over the past 12 months, were buried.

The Italian Ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina , Sarah Eti Castellani, read a message from the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella , in which he "strongly condemns ethnic cleansing and nationalism, together with the spread of hatred and attempts to deny the genocide , hoping for reconciliation, peaceful coexistence and the prospect of European integration for the peoples of the Balkans."

Thirty years after the Srebrenica tragedy, many continue to deny the massacre, with the Hague Tribunal's Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz denouncing a rise in denial and cases of glorification of war criminals . Serbs and Bosnian Serbs remain steadfast in their denial of the Srebrenica genocide, denouncing, for their part, the double standards and silence of the international community regarding the thousands of Serb civilians massacred by Bosnian Muslim forces in Bratunac and other nearby towns, in the Srebrenica region, close to the border between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia.

For the Srebrenica genocide and the siege of Sarajevo, around fifty sentences of over 700 years in prison have been handed down to former Serbian soldiers, police officers, and security service leaders.

The two main perpetrators were sentenced to life imprisonment, in addition to Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs . Both are in precarious health; the former is being held in the Hague Tribunal penitentiary in Scheveningen, the latter in a prison on the Isle of Wight, in southern Great Britain.

(Unioneonline)