The Srebrenica – Potočari Memorial Center, the Memorial and Cemetery for the Victims of the 1995 Genocide, this year marks the 20th anniversary of its official opening. On that occasion, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, Hamdija Fejzić, stated that there is a justified fear that not all victims of the genocide in Srebrenica will be found because the processes of finding the missing and identification have slowed down.
“The fight for the truth, the fight for finding the murdered and their identification began immediately after the war. Back in 2003, we held the first collective funerals here, and this memorial center was opened in September of the same year,” said Fejzić.
He points out that the opening and the very existence of the Memorial Center is a big step in documenting the crime of genocide committed against Bosniaks and that it is the first institution that openly, publicly and systematically works on documenting the crime of genocide.
Fejzić says that in the past period a lot of work has been done in the Memorial Center itself in terms of infrastructure.
“But more importantly, in terms of documenting genocide, especially in the segment of collecting personal data of victims of genocide, history, personal testimonies, analyses, relevant judgments and prosecution of responsibility for genocide and crimes against humanity,” he emphasized.
Fejzić believes that the contribution of surviving victims of genocide, mothers, in the fight for truth and justice is immeasurable.
“First of all, thanks to the efforts of survivors, especially mothers, we still have a Memorial Center here in Potočari. What we must talk about and always remember is that we are still looking for more than a thousand victims even after 28 years since the genocide was committed,” he said.
He considers it a painful fact that many mothers, wives, sisters of those killed died without waiting for their children, husbands, fathers, brothers to be found.
“The victims that we have identified and for whom we hold funerals every year, their bodies are generally not complete, often buried by one or two bones of the victims. After the collective funeral, every year we have re-exhumations of previously buried genocide victims in order to add the remains that were found after the burial and identification,” he said, Fena reports.
