11 July 2019 marks the 24th anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide

FEMYSO commemorates and mourns the more than 8,300 Bosniak Muslims which where massacred in an intentional genocide in Srebrenica in July 1995. The massacre took place as the UNPROFOR’s 370 Dutchbat soldiers failed to prevent the town of Srebrenica from being captured by Serbian forces. However the genocidal campaign had started already in 1992 and it included concentration camps, deportations, sieges, and massacres of Muslims in many cities of today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the Srebrenica genocide remains to be the most painful point.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), both being judicial organs of the United Nations, issued several verdicts clearly stating that the Serb political and military leadership, primarily Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, were responsible for committing genocide.

It is extremely disturbing to see that their legacy, as well as the legacy of other war criminals convicted of genocide, is continuously glorified and are seen as an inspiration for horrific massacres and attacks perpetrated around the world, including Christchurch terrorist attack in March 2019.

As part of last year’s (2018) General Assembly, FEMYSO organised a trip to the Srebrenica memorial centre, where we had the chance to meet with survivors of the war, and getting to know what happened more than fifteen years ago. The International Court of Justice in 2007 recognised genocide in Srebrenica.

It is the responsibility of all of us to remember the victims, to spread the truth, and to make sure that nothing similar never happens again.