The international community's high representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, German Christian Schmidt, has amended legislation on a memorial center to victims of the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica to allow funds originally intended for burials to be used to help run the facility.
"The OHR has always been particularly committed to the work and legacy of the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Center," it said. "Therefore, I have decided to provide assistance in improving the functioning of the Center by opening the possibility for the redistribution of funds that are already available," Schmidt was quoted as saying.
The Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Center had requested the change, and reallocations will require prior consent from the funds' donors.
The center's board has suggested that half of the existing funding is sufficient for ongoing burials.
The move will reportedly free up the equivalent of around 3 million euros for the center, which honors around 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys killed by Bosnian Serb forces after UN peacekeepers failed to protect a "safe area" late in the ethnically fueled 1992-95 Bosnian War.
Schmidt stressed that the center is still obligated to ensure an appropriate and dignified burial of the remains of further victims of the Srebrenica massacre, which is of extreme importance to families and other survivors, the Office of the High Representative (OHR) announced.
But the change will also help with construction work and maintenance, as well as international cooperation.
Schmidt added that the center requires constant care and attention from both domestic and international actors.
Schmidt also urged further paths "to ensure the permanent memory of the victims, and further expand the memorialization of the Srebrenica genocide and the promotion of peace."
In addition to victim care and commemorations, he said, the center "will additionally focus on education."
The center remains a keystone of commemoration efforts of a brutal conflict in a region that descended into ethnic cleansing and horrific violence following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Center was opened in 2003 with former U.S. President Bill Clinton in attendance.
Bosnian Serb forces killed 8,372 men and boys in and around Srebrenica in July 1995. More than 1,000 victims' remains still have not been found or identified.
Additionally, more than 25,000 women, children, and elderly residents were expelled from the UN's so-called safe area.
More than 50 people have been sentenced to a combined 700 years in prison for their roles in genocide and war crimes at Srebrenica, including former Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and ex-commander Ratko Mladic.