NEZUK: A solemn peace march started on Saturday through forests in eastern Bosnia in memory of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since World War II.
The annual 100-km (60-mile) march retraces a route taken by thousands of men and boys from the Bosniak ethnic group, made up primarily of Muslims, who were slaughtered as they tried to flee Srebrenica after it was captured by Bosnian Serb forces late in the 1992-95 war.
The march is part of several events preceding the actual date commemorating the massacre on July 11. Nearly 4,000 people joined this year’s march, according to organisers. The event comes as ethnic tensions in Bosnia still persist with Bosnian Serbs continuing to push for more independence and their open calls for separation.
The war in Bosnia erupted in 1992 after the former Yugoslavia broke up and Bosnian Serbs launched a rebellion and a land grab to form their own state and join Serbia. More than 1,00,000 people died before the war ended in 1995 in a US-brokered peace agreement. In July 1995, more than 8,000 Bosniak males were separated by Serb troops from their wives, mothers and sisters, chased through woods around Srebrenica and killed.
Bosnian Serb soldiers dumped the victims’ bodies in numerous mass graves scattered around the eastern town in an attempt to hide the evidence of the crime.