Bosnian Serbs mourn relatives killed in war
AFP
BANJA LUKA- Several thousand Bosnian Serbs gathered in eastern Bosnia Sunday to remember loved ones killed during the 1990s war, a day after Muslims marked the 14th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.
The mourners gathered at a ceremony in Bratunac, near Srebrenica, for the ceremony.
They were remembering some 3,200 Serb soldiers and civilians killed in the region during the 1992-1995 war, according to Bosnian Serb figures, the local SRNA news agency reported.
"Justice and punishment have to reach everyone, victims and perpetrators, no matter who they are," said Serb Veterans Minister Rade Ristovic, SRNA reported.
On Saturday, more than 20,000 Muslims gathered in Srebrenica to bury 534 newly identified victims on the 14th anniversary of the wartime massacre.
The worst atrocity in Europe since World War II took place near the end of Bosnia's inter-ethnic war, after Serb forces overran the then UN-protected enclave, summarily killing some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
Serb deputies in the Bosnian parliament blocked an initiative to declare July 11 the Srebrenica genocide remembrance day in the former Yugoslav republic.
Bosnia's inter-ethnic war cost 100,000 lives and left the country split into two highly autonomous entities -- the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serbs' Republika Srpska.
The International Court of Justice and the UN war crimes tribunal, both based in The Hague, have ruled that the massacre was an act of genocide.
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