In Srebrenica Genocide Memorial: some new graves
According to the charity Remembering Srebrenica “during the Balkans conflict of 1992-1995, the Bosnian town of Srebrenica was declared a UN Safe Area in 1993, under the watch of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). In July 1995, General Ratko Mladić and his Serbian paramilitary units overran and captured the town, despite its designation as an area “free from any armed attack or any other hostile act”. In the days following Srebrenica’s fall, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were systematically massacred and buried in mass graves. Thousands of women, children and elderly people were forcibly deported and a large number of women were raped. It was the greatest atrocity on European soil since the Second World War. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ruled that the mass execution of Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica constituted genocide. The Srebrenica Genocide Memorial, officially known as the Srebrenica–Potočari Memorial and Cemetery for the Victims of the 1995 Genocide, was opened by the former US President Bill Clinton to honour the victims of the genocide. Until May 2017, 6,938 genocide victims have been identified through DNA analysis of human remains recovered from mass graves and until 11th July 2017 6,504 victims have been buried in the Srebrenica Potočari Memorial. 11th July is Srebrenica Memorial Day, the EU designated day to remember the Srebrenica genocide. Every year new identified genocide victims are buried in the Srebrenica Potocari Memorial on this day. In this way the remains of 71 recently identified victims were buried on the 22nd anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, on Tuesday 11th July 2017. These photos were taken in August 2017 and show some green wooden planks on the new graves which will be replaced by white gravestones during the following year.