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Srebrenica victims remembered

July 11, 2013

Thousands of Bosnians have gathered near Srebrenica to mark the 18th anniversary of the worst atrocity on European soil since World War II. More than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in 1995.

Bosnian women cry near the coffins of their relatives at the Potocari Memorial Center in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11 July 2013, during the burial of 409 newly-identified Bosnian Muslims as part of a memorial ceremony to mark the 18th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, considered the worst atrocity of Bosnia's 1992-95 war. More than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were executed in the 1995 killing spree after Bosnian Serb forces overran the town. EPA/VALDRIN XHEMAJ +++(c) dpa - Bildfunk+++
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

In an event held annually in the years since the Srebrenica massacre, the remains of a total of 409 people were reburied at the special cemetery in Potocari, just outside of the town.

They were the most recently identified victims of the slaughter whose body parts have been identified by and brought together by forensic scientists so that they could receive a formal burial. Previously, the bodies and body parts had been buried in mass graves at various locations around the country.

Among the victims to be buried this year is a baby who died shortly after being born at the United Nations base at Potocari in 1995.

Srebrenica Massacre: 18 Years Later

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"This year we are going to bury the youngest victim of the genocide, the Muhic family's baby," Kenan Karavdic, a government official in charge of the burial ceremony told the AFP news agency.

The bodies had been brought to Srebrenica in a special procession that took them past mourners in the capital, Sarajevo.

So far 6,006 bodies of the victims have been recovered and identified, while more than 2,300 others remain missing.

Srebrenica had been a UN-declared safe area until Bosnian Serb forces overran the Muslim enclave, brushing aside lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers on July 11, 1995.

Genocide charge reinstated

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague on Thursday reinstated a genocide charge against former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic.

The appeals judges' decision reversed a ruling handed down last year in which Karadzic had been acquitted on one of two genocide charges he faces.

pfd/rc (AFP dpa, AP)

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