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LeMonde
12-07-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
Srebrenica massacre commemoration: 30 years later, the enduring bitterness of grieving families
Lips pressed together and eyes teary, Zejad Avdic carried his brother's coffin through an emotional crowd. On Friday, July 11, exactly 30 years after the start of the Srebrenica genocide, this French-Bosnian carpenter who lives near Pontarlier (eastern France) could finally mourn Senajid, whom he last saw in 1995, when his brother was 16. "For years, we hoped to be able to bury more than just his jawbone, which was found in 2010, but the identification center told us it was rare to find any other remains," explained the man in his 40s, with salt-and-pepper hair, surrounded by his family and thousands of Bosnians attending the 30 th anniversary commemoration of the largest civilian massacre in Europe since the end of World War II. As each year, victims identified over the past 12 months or whose families had finally agreed to burial were laid to rest on this occasion. "It had to be done while I am still alive," said Husein Avdic, Zejad's 71-year-old father, before his son's coffin was quickly covered with earth, according to the Bosnian Muslim rite. Zejad Avdic lost track of his brother during the Bosnian war, when the Serb forces led by General Ratko Mladic took control of Srebrenica, a Bosnian enclave that was supposed to be protected by Dutch United Nations forces. While Zejad managed to escape by walking for six days with thousands of other men in terrible conditions toward areas held by Bosnian fighters, Senajid, who was 19 at the time, never made it to safety.
Express Tribune
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Bosnians honour Srebrenica genocide victims 30 years on
A Bosnian Muslim survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide walks among headstones as she visits the graves of her relatives at the memorial cemetery in Potocari, near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, July 11, 2024. Photo AFP Thousands of Bosnians marked the 30th anniversary of a massacre in which more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys were executed by Bosnian Serb forces during a 1992-1995 war at a cemetery near Srebrenica on Friday. Families buried the partial remains of seven victims, one of them a woman, alongside 6,750 already interred. Local and foreign dignitaries laid flowers at the memorial where the names of the victims are engraved in stone. About 1,000 victims have yet to be found from Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two, which, decades later, still haunts Bosnia and Herzegovina's 3 million people. Families who retrieved victims' remains have increasingly opted to bury even just a few bones to give them a final resting place. "I feel such sadness and pain for all these people and youth," said a woman called Sabaheta from the eastern town of Gorazde. Survivors and families, standing or sitting by the rows of white gravestones, joined a collective Islamic prayer for the dead before the burial. Then, in a highly emotional procession, the men carried coffins draped in green cloth and Bosnian flags to the graves. The massacre unfolded after Srebrenica — a designated UN "safe area" for civilians in Bosnia's war that followed the disintegration of federal Yugoslavia — was overrun by nationalist Bosnian Serb forces. While the women opted to go to the UN compound, men tried to escape through nearby woods where most of them were caught. Some were shot immediately, and others were driven to schools or warehouses where they were killed in the following days. The bodies were dumped in pits then dug up months later and scattered in smaller graves in an effort to conceal the crime.
Euractiv
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Euractiv
Serbia's bold protests and buried crimes
Fred Abrahams covered the South Balkans for Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2000. He testified in the UN war crimes trials of Slobodan Milosevic, Vlastimir Djordjevic, and other former Serbian leaders. For months now, Serbian students have braved intimidation and arrest to fill streets across their country in vibrant protest. Their demands are clear: an end to corruption, abuse of power, and the tight grip of President Aleksandar Vučić's lengthy rule. They want transparent governance, a free press, and courts that uphold the law rather than serve leaders. The challenge now is how to realise that brighter future while honestly grappling with Serbia's darker past – and connecting the fight for justice at home with accountability for abuses that crossed borders and generations. That link comes into sharp focus this month, as Bosnia and Herzegovina marks the 30th anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica. On July 11, survivors and families, and many around the world, will again remember how Bosnian Serb forces massacred more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men – Europe's worst atrocity since World War II. The Vučić government continues to reject Serbia's responsibility in enabling and supporting that crime. And the student-led democratic movement is still grappling with how, or whether, to reckon with this heavy legacy. Some critics accuse the students of avoiding this history to calm or appease nationalist currents. Others argue it is unfair to expect young people – many of whom were not even born at the time – to answer for crimes committed decades ago. But whichever view one takes, the connection cannot be ignored: a more democratic society, rooted in the rule of law, will stand on shaky ground without an honest reckoning with the crimes that came before. Consider the recent case of Vlastimir Djordjevic, who ran Serbia's powerful police during Slobodan Milosevic's rule and the 1998–99 war in Kosovo. Last month, Djordjevic returned home after serving an 18-year sentence handed down by a United Nations tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Within days of his release, he stood proudly at a ceremony to rename a street after the special police units he once commanded – forces responsible for torture, mass killings, sexual violence, and the secret removal of around 1,000 bodies to hide the evidence. Those remains, dumped in mass graves at police compounds and other sites across Serbia, have never been fully found. His warm welcome is no anomaly. Other senior officials convicted by the UN tribunal have come home to applause. They speak at public events, appear on state TV, and deny the crimes for which they were convicted – even as domestic war crimes trials stall and high-level suspects remain untouched. The brave students protesting in Belgrade and other cities may not carry signs about Srebrenica or the mass graves hidden beneath Serbian soil. But their struggle is bound to the same truth: A state that shields political cronies is the same state that protects war criminals. A government that buries the truth about the past cannot be trusted to deliver genuine justice, transparency and democratic rule.
Irish Examiner
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Thirty years on, Srebrenica still lives under the shadow of genocide
In June this year, I visited the memorial to the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. To stand among the crosses and see all the names etched on the memorial wall brought back to me those horrible days, where men and boys were separated from their loved ones and brought to surrounding schools and community halls to be murdered. I still have a memory of a little boy, totally uncomprehending, clutching his white rabbit with tears dripping down his cheeks. Thirty years ago, beginning on July 9, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces overran the town of Srebrenica in the east of the country and proceeded to kill or disappear up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys and forcibly remove up to 30,000 women, girls and elderly as part of an organised military plan to 'create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants'. I was there as part of an investigation in my role as UN special rapporteur, to examine the situation for people defending human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina today. During the trip, I met with people across the country to learn about their work for the rights of others. They are achieving so much, in spite of the fractured political landscape and the "frozen peace" described by so many of the people I met in the country. Some of the most challenging work is being done by people seeking to address and overcome the wrongs of the past. It is lonely work, mainly being done by women, and often with active opposition from the authorities, which leaves people in their communities wary of showing support or from getting involved themselves. One woman who has been involved in peace building for decades told me how heavily she has been impacted by seeing the crimes perpetrated in her country repeated by Israel in Gaza. Who is to say it couldn't happen here again, she asked me, if the international community is willing to stand aside while another genocide is perpetrated elsewhere? In the city of Prijedor, where the first detention camps were opened by the Bosnian Serbs during the war, as part of a plan of ethnic cleansing and mass executions, 102 children were killed between 1992 and 1995. Mary Lawlor: 'People are traumatised, human rights defenders told me. Everyone, they said to me, is a bomb waiting to go off.' For years, their parents and local human rights activists have been seeking the construction of a memorial in their name. In 2014, they gathered 1,175 signatures for a petition in support of the initiative, and delivered it to the city assembly. Since then, they have been ignored and obstructed by local authorities, while memorials for soldiers have been erected without issue. People are traumatised, human rights defenders told me. Everyone, they said to me, is a bomb waiting to go off. Time has passed, but it hasn't healed all the wounds. At least in part, that is because it suits some people for it not to. Plenty of people in Bosnia and Herzegovina are still profiting from ethno-nationalist narratives and division. This is stirred up by politicians and has gone hand in hand with a serious deterioration in the environment for defending and promoting human rights, particularly in Republika Srpska, one of the country's two entities. Human rights defenders, including independent journalists, LGBT+ activists and members of civil society organisations, have been depicted by high-level authorities as internal enemies of the entity, in a discourse maintained over years. In a country strongly marked by corruption, these smears and threats seem aimed at sowing division and cement power captured since the Dayton Peace Agreement, the 30th anniversary of which also takes place this year. Verbal attacks have been accompanied with the introduction of repressive legislation, including to re-criminalise defamation and create a register of "agents of foreign influence", that make it riskier for people to speak out critically against the actions of the authorities. That includes when it comes to concessions in the extractive industries, with European companies among those seeking to exploit the nation's critical minerals. All the while, those in power continue to deny what was done in Srebrenica and elsewhere in the country. This is a road to nowhere. There are also issues for people defending and promoting human rights in the country's other entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where human rights defenders could use much more support. Coming away from Srebrenica, speaking with people in Prijedor and elsewhere in the country, I was struck by despair at what we do to one another and what we allow to happen — the blows we inflict on our shared humanity. But I also left with hope. Transitional justice takes courage, understanding, and persistence. Ordinary people — human rights defenders — are showing all of that in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They embody the better future that peace proclaimed 30 years ago, but, as elsewhere, their voices are at risk of being drowned out by those seeking profit through power, exploiting the pains of the past for their own gain. Mary Lawlor is UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders
Daily Mirror
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Duchess Sophie makes touching scarf gesture at memorial to Srebrenica Genocide
Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, travelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina today - and she made a poignant gesture while visiting the Mother's Scarf art installation at Sarajevo City Hall The Duchess of Edinburgh heard the poignant stories of the families of those who still have relatives missing - 30 years on from the Bosnian War on a trip to mark the anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide. Sophie has travelled to the country to attend a memorial service for victims of the massacre, which saw more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys murdered in the town of Srebrenica in July 1995 and 25,000 women and children forced out. On Friday she will attend a memorial service in Srebrenica, where she will deliver a message at the huge ceremony on behalf of the King. But arriving in Sarajevo today, she visited the Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which works across ethnic divides to find missing people from the 1990s conflict. The Duchess, who wore a white Srebrenica Flower as a mark of remembrance, heard how more than 34,000 people went missing during the war and that 7,600 have yet to be reunited with their grieving families. King Charles assigns Royal Family's 'secret weapon' to stand in for him on major trip And speaking to three families who still have relatives missing 30 years on, Sophie praised the efforts being made for families to be reunited with the missing in order to give them a proper burial and said the issue was one of 'humanity' that 'transcends politics'. She was told how UK government funding had helped the organisation use DNA techniques to identify some of the remains found but heard how frustrating the painstaking task can be to reunite those missing with their loved ones over three decades later. But the Duchess urged them to continue with their work telling them: 'Whilst there is hope I'm sure you will continue to work together with such kindness and humanity.' She also told the organisation how they had brought 'comfort' to so many families, despite their 'difficult task'. After meeting the families she then was taken on tour of Sarajevo's Old Town where she chatted with Velma Šarić, a local female peacekeeper, who told her about the role women play in reconciliation. As they walked around the Old Town's Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian architecture which still shows the scars of the war, Sophie was thanked for her work by the peacekeeper for her work campaigning for the victims of sexual violence in conflict. In a poignant moment, they together visited the Mother's Scarf art installation at Sarajevo City Hall, which is a collection of scarves from women that represents the resilience and courage of women during the war. Sophie donated a scarf to the project, presenting it to Velma before hanging it in the installation in a touching gesture. Before they parted the peacekeeper presented the Duchess with a gift of a metallic Srebrenica memorial flower and the two women hugged. It came after her first stop in Sarajevo that saw her meet the Croat member of Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency, Željko Komšić, discussed the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide at the Presidency building in Sarajevo. The Bosnian presidency comprises three members - one Bosniak, one Croat and one Serb. The position of chairperson of the presidency rotates every eight months.
