The planned activities regarding the Peace March within the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide have been cancelled, said head of the Organizing Committee Hamdija Fejzic said Tuesday.
“The reason why this activity will not take place is due to the situation in Nezuk caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, the residents of this settlement are in a difficult situation due to the virus, so the Organizing Committee is forced to cancel this activity,” Fejzic said.
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As a survivor of the genocide, and head of the Organizing Committee for the 25th anniversary of the genocide against Bosniaks in Srebrenica, Fejzic asked the authorities to help the residents of Nezuk, who are struggling with problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year’s anniversary of the slaughter of over 8,000 Muslim men and boys from the area of Srebrenica will be much different from previous years. There will be no guests present at the burial ceremony, but their messages will be read or played via video link, as not to spread the new coronavirus to the guests and family members of the victims whose remains will be buried on July 11.
In April 1993, the UN had declared the besieged enclave of the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica a safe area under UN protection.
However, in July 1995, the Dutch battalion failed to prevent the town’s capture by the Bosnian Serb forces and the massacre that followed.
More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed in the days following July 11, 1995, and so far the remains of more than 6,600 have been found and buried.
The International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice later ruled that the massacre was an act of genocide.
International and regional courts have sentenced 45 people for what happened in Srebrenica to a total of more than 700 years behind bars. Those who the ICTY sentenced to life imprisonment are Ljubisa Beara, Zdravko Tolimir, and Vujadin Popovic. But the most well known alleged masterminds of what happened in Srebrenica are former Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadzic and ex Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, and both have been sentenced for it but have appealed.