Thousands mark 31st Srebrenica anniversary, bury ten victims

Thousands of people gathered at the Srebrenica Memorial Centre in Potočari on Saturday, July 11, 2026, to mark the 31st anniversary of the genocide and to bury ten newly identified victims. The annual commemoration honors the more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys systematically murdered by Bosnian Serb forces after they overran the United Nations-declared safe area in July 1995.

The remains of the ten men, aged between 20 and 56 at the time of their deaths, were interred in a collective funeral. Their bodies, recovered from various primary and secondary mass grave sites between 1997 and 2022, were identified through DNA analysis. The ceremony followed the annual Peace March, where participants retraced part of the forest route used by those trying to escape the advancing forces. For many families, the burial represents a painful but necessary step toward closure after decades of uncertainty.

The 1995 genocide began on July 11 when Bosnian Serb forces, under the command of Ratko Mladić, captured Srebrenica. They separated men and boys from women and children, forcibly transferring the women and children out of the area before executing thousands of men over several days. In...