We can all pay our respects by pledging never to forget this atrocity
IT is 25 years since the Srebrenica massacre, yet the remains of men and boys who lost their lives are still being identified and buried by their loved ones. Today, eight of them will be laid to rest.
The Srebrenica genocide is often referred to as the worst on European soil since the Second
World War. More than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered when the town of Srebrenica was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces during the country’s war.
A couple of years ago I witnessed the heart-breaking testimony of two survivors of these crimes against humanity, Dr Ilijaz Pilav and Nusreta Sivac, and their words have stayed with me.
The bodies of those killed were put into mass graves and then later dug up with bulldozers and then scattered on other burial sites to hide the evidence of the crime. However since 1996, Bosnian and international scientists have slowly unlocked what was once described as the “biggest forensic puzzle anywhere in the world,” by unearthing the remains and connecting them with the names they belonged to.
Scotland has close links with Srebrenica because many scientists travelled to the region to help identify the remains in mass graves and later gave evidence at The Hague on the war crimes. Scots have also played a key role in the International Commission on Missing Persons formerly headquartered in Bosnia.
During the war, volunteers from Edinburgh Direct Aid bravely drove medicine and other supplies to those trapped in Sarajevo. When the First Minister visited Srebrenica in 2016 she visited the Christine Witcutt Day Care Centre for children with Special Needs; dedicated to its namesake, Christine was an aid worker and teacher from
Wishaw who was killed by a sniper in Sarajevo.
Anniversaries such as these should remind us to be constantly vigilant about the growth of extremism – of totalitarian leaders, of intolerance and of bigotry wherever it arises.
Today, when the remains of eight of the victims are laid to rest near Srebrenica, their marble gravestones will join thousands more, each with the same month and year of death.
We can all pay our respects, especially today, by pledging never to forget.