More than 5,000 participants of the “Peace March” arrived after a three-day hike at the Srebrenica Memorial Center – Potočari to attend the commemoration of the 29th anniversary of the genocide against Bosniaks committed in July 1995 in Srebrenica.
Three days ago, the participants set off from Nezuk, in the Sapna area, on a journey of more than 100 kilometers. They followed the route that the people of Srebrenica tried to reach in the summer of 29 years ago to reach the free territory – Tuzla or Kladanj. In the “March of Peace” there was a large number of young people and people from different parts of the world who in this way pay tribute to the victims of the genocide in Srebrenica, but also send a message that this should never happen again to anyone.
The participants of the “Peace March” will later attend the presentation of the coffin from the hall of the former Battery Factory, which arrived in Potočari yesterday. Tomorrow he will attend the collective funeral for 14 victims of the genocide. They were killed in the summer of 29 years ago.
The “March of Peace”, which is organized this year for the 20th time as part of the commemoration of the 29th anniversary of the genocide against Bosniaks in the “United Nations Safe Zone” Srebrenica, represents for the survivors of Srebrenica a kind of trauma treatment, but also an obligation to tell their experiences and stories and pass them on to younger generations .
The “March of Peace” is a memorial event that takes place every year, in July, on the occasion of the anniversary of the genocide against Bosniaks in the “United Nations Safe Zone” in Srebrenica in July 1995.
The “Peace March” aims to build, promote and nurture the culture of remembrance of the genocide against the Bosniaks in Srebrenica, and to prevent the denial, denial and relativization of the crime of genocide.
”Peace March” lasts three days and the participants walk on a path about a hundred kilometers long from Nezuk to Potočari. On this path in the opposite direction, from Potočari to Nezuk, in July 1995, Bosniaks escaped and broke through during the occupation and seizure of the “United Nations Safe Zone” of Srebrenica by Serbian military and police formations.
The participants of the “Peace March” walk about 30 kilometers a day, and in certain places the path is extremely strenuous, inaccessible and requires good physical fitness of the participants.
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 Milići. 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.
During the genocide in and around Srebrenica in July 1995, members of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS), under the command of the then president of the RS, Radovan Karadžić, and the commander-in-chief of the VRS, Ratko Mladić, killed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys.
The crime in Srebrenica, the largest on European soil after the Second World War, was characterized as genocide before domestic and international courts.
Radovan Karadžić was sentenced before the Mechanism for International Criminal Courts (IMCC), the successor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and violation of the laws and customs of war during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Ratko Mladić was also found guilty of genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment before the same court in The Hague.
At least 47 people were sentenced to more than 700 years in prison for crimes committed in the Srebrenica area, Anadolu Agency writes.
