Thousands Mark 27th Anniversary of Srebrenica Massacre

Thousands of people from Bosnia-Herzegovina and around the world have descended on Srebrenica for the 27th anniversary of Serbian massacre 

Serbian forces summarily executed more than 8,000 Bosnian men and boys. About 100,000 people, including women and children died during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.

Families of 50 recently identified victims will rebury their loved ones after almost three decades of searching through the mass graves scattered around the eastern Bosnian town.

The Srebrenica massacre is Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since the Holocaust and is the only one legally defined as such by many countries and two United Nations courts.

A special U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague found Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic, guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in Srebrenica and eventually extended their initial long-term prison sentences to life imprisonment. 

The tribunal and courts in the Balkan countries have sentenced about 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials to more than 700 years in prison for the Srebrenica killings.

Leaders of Serb Republic of Bosnia, or Republika Srpska, however, continue to downplay or even deny the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and hail Karadzic and Mladic as national heroes.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
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