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Srebrenica Commemorates 12th Anniversary Of Massacre


Mourners braved rain for the ceremony (epa) July 11, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Bosnia today is laying to rest the remains of more than 450 Muslims killed 12 years ago in the Srebrenica massacre.


Some 30,000 Srebrenica survivors and victims' relatives are expected to attend the ceremony and funeral at a memorial center where the remains of more than 2,400 of those killed are already buried.


Among them will be the UN chief war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, who for years has been pressing Serbia to arrest and hand over to The Hague two fugitive war crimes suspects accused of orchestrating the massacre -- former Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic.


In 1995, up to 8,000 Muslims were killed in Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces during the Bosnian war in what has been called the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II.


The International Court of Justice ruled in February that it was genocide.


Bodies from the Srebrenica massacre are still being found across Bosnia. RFE/RL's South Slavic and Albanian Language Services correspondent Gordana Knezevic says that is because the Bosnian Serbs who perpetrated the massacre later dug up some of the victims from mass graves near the killing sites and moved them elsewhere in Bosnia in an effort to hide their crime.


(with material from Reuters, AFP)

FURTHER READING
Genocide ruling
In a first, the International Court of Justice said the massacre amounted to genocide, but that Serbia was not responsible more
Srebrenica timeline
Thousands were massacred despite Srebrenica being declared a UN safe haven more

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