Bosnia to commemorate 12th anniversary of Srebrenica massacre

Jul 9, 2007, 13:24 GMT

Sarajevo - A few hundred Bosnian Muslims gathered Monday in the central Bosnian town of Visoko, some 20 kilometres northwest of the capital Sarajevo, to pay their respect to the victims of the 1995 massacre in the eastern town of Srebrenica.

Caskets containing the remains of 465 recently identified Srebrenica victims would be transported by three trucks to the Potocari Memorial Centre, where commemoration and burial will be held on Wednesday, marking the 12th anniversary of the massacre in which Bosnian Serb troops executed up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men after capturing Srebrenica during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Srebrenica massacre victims, including 464 men and boys between the ages of 13 and 77 years and a 75-year-old woman, would be buried alongside about 2,600 other victims of the massacre buried in Potocari since the Memorial Centre was opened in 2003.

More than 1,000 Bosnian Serb police troops, supported by the European Union Police Mission (EUPM) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, are to secure Wednesday's commemoration in Potocari, which more than 30,000 Bosnian Muslims are expected to attend.

High profile local and international dignitaries, including the Chief Prosecutor of the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Carla Del Ponte, are expected to attend the event.

The day of funeral of Srebrenica victims has been declared the national mourning day in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Nearly 3,200 victims of the Srebrenica massacre have so far been identified through sophisticated DNA analysis, out of more than 5,000 bags containing the remains of an unknown number of victims exhumed from some 60 mass and individual graves in the Srebrenica area.

The masterminds of the massacre, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his army commander general Ratko Mladic, remain at large.

The ICTY has charged both Karadzic and Mladic with war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and severe breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

The indictment includes charges for massacre in Srebrenica.