Thousands of mourners gathered on Thursday in Srebrenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina to commemorate the victims of the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in 1995.
This is the first time the genocide is being commemorated under the international memorial day, which the UN General Assembly voted to establish this spring. The decision was made despite protests from Serbia and Bosnian Serbs.
In Srebrenica, around 8,000 Bosniak boys and men were murdered in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb forces during the civil war in former Yugoslavia. The massacre, classified as genocide, is considered the gravest war crime in Europe since World War II.
Their souls feel that we are here, next to them. When I come here, it feels like we just parted ways in Srebrenica, says a 54-year-old woman who participated in the memorial day, and who still hopes that some remains of her murdered brother will one day be found so that she can bury him.
