Jacksonville’s Bosnian community will remember the 8,000 people massacred 20 years ago in Potocari, near Srebrenica, with a 10:30 a.m. Saturday ceremony that will include the laying of 8,000 roses at Hemming Park at 303 N. Laura St.
The anniversary of the killing by forces under the command of Gen. Ratko Mladic in July 1995 will be commemorated on the same day by an estimated 40,000 people at the official genocide commemoration site at Potcari. Many of those people participated in the Marš Mira (Peace March), tracing the path of the 15,000 men and boys who fled from a UN enclave of Srebrenica in 1995 after it fell to Serb forces.
As in previous years, the anniversary is the date set for the annual burial of the bodies of the victims identified in the previous year, the most recent 520 bringing the total in the official cemetery to 5,657.
Jacksonville’s Bosnian community will stand with those who lost loved ones in the massacre.
(Source: jacksonville)