At the Memorial Center in Potocari, a depot has been opened for the dignified and lasting storage of mortal remains, personal items, and clothing of Srebrenica genocide victims who could not be identified, with the intention for this place to serve as a site of remembrance, reflection, and opposition to denial.
For Munira Subasic, president of the Association Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves, the opening of the depot is extremely important because it will contain the bones of Srebrenica victims, and now “mothers cannot be told that they didn’t have children.”
“This is a special day for us. We will safeguard and cherish our bones the best we can. In 2013, I buried two bones of my son. In this crime, genocide was committed against us, but later there was also genocide committed against the bones by hiding them, and now genocide is being committed by denial,” she said.
Emir Suljagic, the director of the Memorial Center, speaking about the thirty-year search for the bodies of those killed in the Srebrenica genocide and the work of the institution he leads, stated that they would not have succeeded without partners and allies.
“Through this depot, we now have the opportunity to preserve the memory of our story. This place exists out of love and the inability of that love to find the bones of those it loves. It exists from the desire of mothers, sisters, and daughters to preserve the bones of their loved ones,” Suljagic stated.
According to Almasa Salihovic, spokesperson for the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Center, the idea originated in 2017 when the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) proposed that items from the “Podrinje Identification Center” be transferred to Potocari. This idea was realized this year through the collaboration of the Memorial Center, the “PRO-Future” Project of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) implemented by Catholic Relief Services (CRS).
“The depot is dedicated to preserving the truth so that genocide never happens to anyone again and so that memory is not erased from remembrance. May the opening of the depot be a new step in the fight for truth, justice, and dignity,” Salihovic said.
Construction of the depot facility began in October 2023 to enable adequate and dignified storage and preservation of all unidentified remains of genocide victims, which will represent a significant contribution to memorialization and prevention of genocide denial, Detektor writes.
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