Bosnia marks 15th anniversary of Srebrenica massacre

http://www.timesofearth.com/Worldnews/?NT=0&nid=24682 SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Bosnia and Herzegovina on Sunday marks 15 years since 8,000 Muslim men and boys were systematically killed by Bosnian Serb forces in what became known as the Srebrenica massacre. But questions still surround the tragedy.

Some 40,000 people gathered Sunday in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, where the massacre widely described as Europe's worst atrocity since World War II occurred 15 years ago.

Srebrenica was a UN-protected enclave besieged by Bosnian Serb forces throughout the 1992-95 war. But UN troops there were quickly overrun when the Serbs entered the town, rounded up its Bosnian Muslim population and killed more than 8,000 men and boys.

As part of Sunday's ceremony, 775 recently identified massacre victims in coffins draped in green were interred at the Potocari war cemetery, where more than 4,500 are already buried.

Several world leaders attended the commemoration ceremony, including US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Recognizing the international community's failure to respond to the bloody Bosnian war, Obama called the massacre "a stain on our collective conscience."

Also at the ceremony was Serbian President Boris Tadic, whose presence many Bosnians resented. Serbia has been criticized for its perceived reluctance to capture Ratko Mladic, the general who led the attack on Srebrenica.

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