Saturday, October 6, 2012

SREBRENICA MASSACRE: 17 YEARS ON. WE WILL NOT FORGET! 11 July 1995



SREBRENICA MASSACRE: 17 YEARS ON. WE WILL NOT FORGET! 11 July 1995

What happened? Read:

On this day, 11th July 1995, at the height of the 1992-1995 War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), under the command of General Ratko Mladić, as well as various Bosnian Serb paramilitary units, took control of the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia. The town was a so-called United Nations safe zone, and held some 40,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees from surrounding towns and villages that had fled or had been expelled following the Serb occupation.

Over a period of 10 days that followed the UN handover of Srebrenica to the Bosnian Serb army, their soldiers engaged in systematic mass killings of thousands of Bosnian Muslim civilians, mostly men and boys - with some as young as 11. They took them to fields, school gymnasiums, warehouses and abandoned factories for their executions. Sometimes their victims were told to dig their own graves prior to being gunned down.

The events that took place after the fall of Srebrenica are now known to be the worst mass killings of civilians in Europe since the Holocaust of the Second World War. It became known as the Srebrenica Genocide, and so far 8,373 victims have been identified from the hundreds of mass graves that have been uncovered thus far. 520 newly identified remains will be buried today in an annual funeral procession. Only God knows how many more remain buried in mass graves in the fields and hills that surround the town.

The Srebrenica Genocide was perhaps the most abominable example of Serb war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1992-1995 War in Bosnia and Herzegovina and, as such, receives a lot of coverage both in the media and in historical discourse. However, it is important to note that it was not the only one. Hundreds of towns and villages in northern and eastern Bosnia - too numerous to name here - that fell under the control of the Bosnian Serb army experienced similar heinous acts of barbarity, from summary killings, to the mass rape of women, to the starvation of civilians in concentration camps.

May we never forget what took place in Srebrenica in July 1995. May Allah raise those who were killed in Srebrenica, and those who were martyred while defending Bosnia and Herzegovina throughout the four-year war, to the lofty station of Jannat ul-Firdaus and have them in the company of angels and prophets, and may they be reunited with their families and loved ones in Paradise. Aamin.


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