The 21st anniversary of the first funeral in Potočari was marked today in the Srebrenica Memorial Center.
Flowers were laid and a tribute to the innocent victims of the “UN Safe Zone Srebrenica” genocide from July 1995 was paid by the mothers of Srebrenica, members of the Memorial Center Management and the President of the Management Board Hamdija Fejzić, and members of the victims’ association.
In his address, the President of the Managing Board of the Srebrenica Memorial Center reminded that on this date in 2003, 600 victims of genocide were buried, and that there were two more collective funerals for victims of genocide that year.
“After the first one, the second funeral was held on July 11, with 282 victims buried, and the third funeral was held on September 20, 2003, when 107 people were buried. A total of 989 victims of genocide were buried that year,” said Fejzić.
He added that “21 years have passed since March 31, 2003, and we still bury our loved ones every year on July 11.”
“What is a painful fact is that the process is nowhere near the end, because we are still searching for more than a thousand victims of genocide. “The question is whether we will find all the victims, because the process of finding them is getting slower, there is less and less information about the missing, and less and less identified victims,” said Fejzić.
He also expressed dissatisfaction because “there is less and less hope that all the perpetrators and perpetrators of the genocide will be punished for the crimes committed”.
“There are more and more mothers and family members who did not wait for their loved ones to be found and identified. In the years since the end of the war, hundreds of mothers have died. However, it is important to point out that thanks to the perseverance of the mothers and survivors of the genocide, today we have the Memorial Center and the place where the murdered victims of the genocide find their peace”, said Fejzić, who said that the surviving victims of the genocide will continue to persevere in the fight for truth and justice:
“Our obligation is to constantly talk about the victims and the genocide against Bosniaks in Srebrenica, to search for the missing and to warn against retrograde policies that would prevent Bosniaks from living in these areas. However, the message is that we are here, on our own, and that we will stay here and survive. We will continue our mission of fighting for truth and justice, and the guarantee that we will succeed is the young generations ready to take on the burden of responsibility.”
The Potočari Memorial Center was officially opened on September 20, 2003, and was opened by the former President of the United States of America, Bill Clinton. So far, 6,751 victims of genocide have been buried in the Srebrenica – Potočari Memorial Center, while 250 victims were buried in local cemeteries by the decision of the surviving family members.
The victims came from different municipalities, most of them from the areas of Srebrenica, Bratunac, Vlasenica, Zvornik and Milić. Genocide victims were found in 150 different locations, of which 77 were mass graves. The youngest victim so far buried in Potočari was a newborn girl, Fatima Muhić, and the oldest was a nun, Šaha Izmirlić, born in 1901.
More than a thousand victims of the genocide are still being searched for, AA writes.
