Sarajevo Pays Respect to Srebrenica Victims
Thousands of Sarajevans paid their respects on Wednesday to 175 Srebrenica massacre victims as they were transported for a joint burial to mark the atrocity's 19th anniversary later this week.
Veiled Muslim women, whose male relatives were killed in the July 1995 massacre by Bosnian Serbs, approached the truck transporting the coffins as it stopped briefly in front of Bosnia's presidential building.
With tears in their eyes they touched the truck's cover and hung flowers on it. Some raised their palms to the sky saying a prayer for the dead.
Among the mourners was Hasa Vranjkovina who came to pay her respects to her brother, whose remains were found 19 years after he was killed.
"Practically all the men from my family were killed, a nephew who was 18, he was pretty as a picture, two more brothers, their sons... all," the 77-year-old told Agence France Presse.
Another woman, Ramiza Pilav, who three years ago buried her husband and 16-year-old son, who were both killed during the massacre, also came to watch the sad convoy pass.
"Every time I have the impression that the passing of the convoy shortens the life of the survivors, the pain is so huge," the 54-year-old told AFP.
"But we have to be here in order not to forget what has happened. This is our task towards the dead."
The somber convoy is an annual event in Bosnia where the newly-found or identified remains of victims are transported through Sarajevo to mark the anniversary of the massacre.
Around 8,000 Muslim men and boys died in the massacre which followed the town's seizure by Bosnia Serb forces on July 11, 1995.
The atrocity was labelled a genocide by two international courts.
So far, the remains of 6,066 people, that were exhumed from mass graves in the Srebrenica region, were reburied at the Potocari cemetery.
The massacre took place just a few months before the end of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, which claimed some 100,000 lives in total.
Source: Agence France Presse
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