Sorrow and Pain: Mothers Bury Their Sons in Srebrenica Today

With the burial and funeral for 175 identified victims, who were killed during the genocide in the Srebrenica area from 1992 to 1995, the 19th anniversary of the greatest crime in Europe after World War II will be marked today, reports the BiH news agency Patria (NAP).

For several days now, Srebrenica, as well as the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been shrouded in sorrow. On July 11th in Potočari, mothers are burying sons, children are burying parents, sisters are burying brothers... 19 years ago, criminals led by Ratko Mladić killed them in the most brutal way simply because they bore Bosniak, Muslim names.

According to data from the Association "Mothers of the Enclaves of Srebrenica and Žepa", 10,701 innocent people, mostly Bosniaks, including women, children, men, and the sick and prisoners, were killed in the Srebrenica area during the aggression against BiH, mostly in mid-July '95.
The youngest victim of the genocide was a newborn baby, who died in the UNPROFOR compound even though she had not yet been given a name. She was buried last year next to her father Hajrudin, grandfather, and two paternal uncles. Her mother named her Fatima.

The largest number of civilians in Srebrenica were killed after they sought help at the UN base, which was controlled by the Dutch battalion of UNPROFOR. This battalion is co-responsible for the deaths of thousands of Bosniaks, for which there is also a verdict from the District Court in The Hague.

According to data from the Association "Mothers of the Enclaves of Srebrenica and Žepa", about 22,000 Serbian soldiers participated in the genocide. So far, 22 perpetrators have been convicted for the crimes, and there are 810 names on the lists of those responsible. Unfortunately, many of them are still walking freely in the cities of BiH, and some of them even hold important state positions in our country, writes the Patria agency.