Institute for Missing Persons of BiH hands over clothing and footwear found in mass graves to Memorial Center

(Patria) - Continuing activities on storing and permanently preserving items found in mass graves, the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH handed over to the Srebrenica Memorial Center 868 cases consisting of several thousand individual items of clothing and footwear. All mentioned cases were found in graves from which genocide victims were exhumed.

„This handover is actually a continuation of our cooperation after we, in the first phase, handed over 402 artifacts to the Srebrenica Memorial Center for permanent storage, which were also found during the opening of mass graves.

In this case, it is clothing and footwear for which, after exhumation, it could not be determined which victim they belonged to, and thus it was not possible to identify them or hand them over to families. Now these items, like the previously handed over artifacts, will testify to the committed crimes, to the mass graves", said Saliha Đuderija, member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Missing Persons of BiH.

Emir Suljagić, director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, emphasized that this is a very important step for the Memorial Center and thanked the Institute and director Đuderija, without whose dedication, as he said, this step would not have been realized.

-This is actually all that remains of many victims, and these are actually evidence of the existence of our family members, friends. And these items will testify to the committed crime and prove that these people lived and point to the consequences of the committed genocide - said Suljagić.

The transfer of cases was carried out by order of the Court of BiH, with the coordination of several institutions, including ICMP, the Tuzla Memorial Center, the Srebrenica Memorial Center, and relevant police agencies. Within the Memorial Center, a special depot has been built where the items will be permanently stored.

This creates a safe space where memories and traces of those who are still waiting for their full recognition are preserved.