The United Nations (UN) first-ever International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica was observed on 11 July 2024 to honour the memory of over 8,300 boys and men who were massacred in and around Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995.
- 11 July 2024 marks the 29th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica.
Note: The massacre in Srebrenica marked one of the darkest chapters of the war that arose after the breakup of former Yugoslavia.
Background:
i.In May 2024, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the resolution A/RES/78/282, designating 11 July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica, to be observed annually.
ii.The resolution was sponsored by Germany and Rwanda, and co-sponsored by over 40 countries.
The Srebrenica Massacre:
i.The breakup of the former Yugoslavia led to a war claiming over 1,00,000 lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995.
- The majority of the victims were Bosnian Muslims, with over 2 million displaced.
ii.In 1993, the UN Security Council (UNSC) declared that Srebrenica was a ‘safe area’, protected by a contingent of UN peacekeepers, and called for the area to be free from armed attacks.
iii.But in July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces, led by military chief of staff Ratko Mladić, captured Srebrenica and brutally murdered thousands of men and teenagers there.
- It marks the largest massacre in Europe since the Nazi Holocaust in World War II.
iv.Around 25,000 Bosnian Muslim women, children, and elderly were forcibly transferred.
v.The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) recognised the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica by the army of Republika Srpska as an act of genocide.
Note: The genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, claimed at least 8,372 lives and displaced thousands.
2024 Event:
On 11 July 2024, the inaugural observance of the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica was marked with a high-level commemorative event.
- The event was organised by the Permanent Mission of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the UNGA hall in New York, the United States of America (USA).
