At noon on July 11, sirens will sound in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina in memory of the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica this year, the Government of Canton Sarajevo announced, Klix.ba news portal reports.
This is an initiative of the City of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Center.
The sirens will sound at exactly 12 o’clock. The Government of Sarajevo Canton has instructed the Cantonal Civil Protection Administration to coordinate the implementation with the municipal headquarters.
According to the Sarajevo Canton Government, this activity will be repeated every year to express Sarajevo’s sympathy for the suffering of innocent civilians in Srebrenica. The initiative of the City of Sarajevo and the Memorial Center was sent to all cantons in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At a working meeting of the leadership of the Organizing Committee for the marking of the 25th anniversary of the genocide against Bosniaks of the “UN Safe Zone” Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, it was decided that the commemoration will be held via video link, Klix.ba news portal reports.
At this meeting, the Government of the Federation of BiH adopted several conclusions, and the Committee agreed that, taking into account the current epidemiological situation in the world and Bosnia and Herzegovina, caused by the new coronavirus pandemic, and based on previous conclusions of the Organizing Committee, commemoration of 25 years from the genocide against Bosniaks of the “UN OT” Srebrenica will be held via video link.
This includes the possibility for foreign statesmen and officials to send a message and address the public directly via video link or recorded video message.
All activities and contents, especially the Peace March, Bihac – Srebrenica Cycling Marathon, Bihac – Srebrenica Ultramarathon, Motomarathon and Vukovar – Srebrenica Ultramarathon, will be held in accordance with epidemiological measures and instructions issued by the competent institutions at that time.
Fifty years after the world said “Never Again” to the horrors of the Holocaust, genocide took place on European soil.
The name Srebrenica has become synonymous with those dark days in July 1995 when, in the first ever United Nations declared safe area, thousands of men and boys were systematically murdered and buried in mass graves. The victims, predominantly Muslim, were selected for death on the basis of their identity. This was the worst atrocity on European soil since the Second World War.
Although Srebrenica is the only mass killing in Balkan wars that has been officially ruled as genocide by the international courts, this atrocity was only the final act in a much broader genocidal strategy—euphemistically dubbed “ethnic cleansing”. The Srebrenica genocide was the planned, systematic, and industrialised conclusion of a four year campaign of forced deportation, torture, mass murder and systematic sexual violence by Bosnian Serb forces in service of their goal to create a “Greater Serbia”. Some Bosnian Serb historians and politicians continue to deny that genocide and ethnic cleansing took place.
Genocide does not happen overnight. It begins when hatred and intolerance are left unchallenged or are manipulated for political gain. With the fall of Yugoslavia, politicians in the region used divisive nationalism to gain power and influence. Propaganda and misinformation were utilised to spread first fear and then hatred, breaking apart decades of trust between vibrant and integrated communities and turning neighbour against neighbour.
