Hundreds gather in Sarajevo to pay their respects to Srebrenica massacre victims

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

Published 7:47 AM CDT, July 9, 2023

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Hundreds lined the Bosnian capital’s main street Sunday as a truck carrying 30 coffins passed on its way to Srebrenica, where newly identified victims of Europe’s only acknowledged genocide since World War II will be buried on the 28th anniversary of the massacre.

As the truck, covered with a huge Bosnian flag, briefly stopped in front of the country’s presidential building, members of the crowd tucked flowers into the canvas hiding the remains of victims found in mass graves and identified through DNA analysis.

“It is devastatingly sad that hundreds of victims still have not been found and that some people still deny the genocide (in Srebrenica),” said Ramiza Gandic, who came to pay her respects.

Newly identified Srebrenica massacre victims are reburied annually on July 11, the day the killing began in 1995, at a vast and ever-expanding memorial cemetery outside the eastern town.




Read more: https://apnews.com/article/bosnia-serebrenica-massacre-farewell-aa4b692533ddb62ec59b13fd930e55ba

[ancianita]

1. Rape, a major part of genocide, was declared a war crime in 1993, the middle of this war.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) declared that "systematic rape" and "sexual enslavement" in time of war was a crime against humanity, second only to the war crime of genocide. Although the ICTY did not treat the mass rapes as genocide, many have concluded from the organized, and systematic nature of the mass rapes of the female Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population, that these rapes were a part of a larger campaign of genocide,[8][9][10] and that the VRS were carrying out a policy of genocidal rape against the Bosnian Muslim ethnic group.[11]

The trial of VRS member Dragoljub Kunarac was the first time in any national or international jurisprudence that a person was convicted of using rape as a weapon of war. The widespread media coverage of the atrocities by Serbian paramilitary and military forces against Bosniak women and children, drew international condemnation of the Serbian forces.[12][13] Following the war, several award-winning documentaries, feature films and plays were produced which cover the rapes and their aftermath.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_Bosnian_War#:~:text=Estimates%20of%20the%20number%20of%20women%20and%20girls%20raped%20range,experts%20have%20claimed%2012%2C000%20rapes.



History shows that rape as a war crime has been around for centuries.

The laws of war existed well before they were codified by international treaties such as the Hague Conventions (1899, 1907). The recognition that some acts were not to be tolerated or viewed as acceptable conduct in times of war has been around for centuries. Rape itself, during international war, has been illegal for centuries—from as far back as the 1470s, when a trial for Peter von Hagenbach, a mercenary soldier, convicted him of war crimes for raping and killing innocent civilians. Or we can look back at the creation of the Geneva Conventions in 1949.

https://womensmediacenter.com/women-under-siege/when-rape-became-a-war-crime-hint-its-not-when-you-think1



Believer wars are part and parcel of the War Against Women.

[2naSalit]

2. +1

[burrowowl]

3. Kick!

[canetoad]

4. Back in the 90s

I had next door neighbours who were refugees from Srebrenica. Mira, the mother had been a city council member - a highly educated woman. Her husband had been a classical musician who played in a symphony orchestra. The kids - Mira told me of their nightmares and scream. Violetta was about 12 and the little one, a boy around 6.

Mira worked several menial jobs, seven days a week to hold the family together. Her husband had lost his mind, she said and now spent his time chain smoking and mumbling rubbish.

It was a cruel war.

[gotham]

5. Dark days in Europe

What a bloody mess the breakup of Yugoslavia was. I remember a lot of nothing happening in the European Capitals as the bodies and atrocities piled up.

Ultimately it took a great American president to stop this madness in Europe. I also remember how difficult it was and how many good people on all sides helped to create "The Dayton Accords".

And here we are back in Europe in 2023. Will it take another American Democrat to stop this madness in Europe.