Funeral Held for Newly-identified Srebrenica Massacre Victims
It also marked the 21st anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre.
Bosnian officials and politicians, representatives from different countries, religious and cultural figures and a large number of Muslims, including families of the victims attended the funeral.
Addressing the event, Bakir Izetbegović , the Bosniak member of the tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, underlined that justice should be served for all victims of the massacre.
Srebrenica Mayor Ćamil Duraković described the day the massacre happened as one of the worst days in the 20th century.
Family members sobbed as they hugged the coffins for the last time before they were buried at a cemetery next to 6,337 other victims found previously in mass graves.
The youngest victim buried this year was 14, the oldest 77.
During the 1990s Bosnia War, the United Nations declared Srebrenica a safe haven for civilians, but that didn't prevent Serb soldiers from attacking the town they besieged for years.
As they advanced on July 11, 1995, most of the town’s Muslim population rushed to the nearby UN compound hoping that the Dutch peacekeepers would protect them.
But the outnumbered and outgunned peacekeepers watched helplessly as Muslim men and boys were separated for execution, while the women and girls were sent to Bosnian government-held territory. Nearly 15,000 residents tried to flee through the woods, but were hunted down and also killed.
While the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has referred to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of Muslim men and boys as "genocide”, Russia in 2015 vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution describing event as genocide.
