This post features our visit to the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial & Museum and the town of Srebrenica before crossing the Drin Rover into the city of Bajina Basta in Serbia.
Srebrenica (Pop 2,607, Elev 399m, Founded 1376) is a town and municipality located in the easternmost part of Republika Srpska, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a small mountain town, with its main industry being salt mining and a nearby spa. During the Bosnian War in 1995, Srebrenica was the site of a massacre of 8,372 Bosniak men and boys, which was subsequently designated as an act of genocide by the ICTY and the International Court of Justice.
The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide involved the killing of 8,372 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica, during the Bosnian War from 11-14 July 1995. The killings were perpetrated by units of the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of Ratko Mladić – hard to believe that this guy was sentenced to only 40 years jail in 2017 and is till alive. Prior to the massacre, United Nations (UN) had declared the besieged enclave of Srebrenica, a "safe area" under UN protection. However, the UN failed both to demilitarize the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) within Srebrenica and to force withdrawal of the VRS surrounding Srebrenica. UNPROFOR's lightly armed Dutchbat soldiers were unable to prevent the town’s capture and the subsequent massacre.
In October 2000 Wolfgang Petritsch, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, declared that the land in Potočari would be turned into a memorial and cemetery for the victims of the genocide. In May 2001, a foundation was established to oversee and finance construction of the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial. Two months later, around the time of the sixth anniversary of the massacre, a foundation stone was laid for the memorial in front of a crowd of 15,000 people. The first memorial was held in July 2002 with about 20,000 attendees. The first 600 victims were buried in the new cemetery in March 2003. The $USD5.8 million memorial-cemetery complex paid for with donations from private groups and governments. The United States provided $1 million toward the project. The memorial was opened by the former United States President, Bill Clinton, on 20 September 2003. The UN Base that was used in the Bosnian War is opposite the memorial and has been converted into a museum featuring photos, videos and even the shoes of those who died in the massacre. It is an austere but moving tribute to those needles cut down.
Bajina Basta (Pop 9,148, Elev 257m, Founded 1834) was only another 30km from the memorial and our first town in Serbia. The town centre is not so attractive and it contains the strangest tourist attraction – a small house built on a rock in the middle of the Drin River right on the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina.
This was indeed a moving day for us both physically and spiritually…
Srebrenica Genocide Memorial & Museum:
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