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11th anniversary of Srebrenica massacre marked

SARAJEVO, July 11 (Hina) - Over 30,000 people gathered at the Potocari Memorial Centre outside the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica on Tuesday to remember more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys massacred there in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic.
SARAJEVO, July 11 (Hina) - Over 30,000 people gathered at the Potocari Memorial Centre outside the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica on Tuesday to remember more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys massacred there in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic.

The bodies of 505 recently-identified victims, including four women and a 15-year-old boy, were buried during the ceremony. On previous occasions 1,937 bodies had been buried in the Muslim cemetery within the memorial complex, and the search for mass graves containing the bodies of the remaining victims continues.

Addressing the crowd, the head of the Islamic community in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Reis-Ul-Ulema Mustafa Ceric, said that "the truth cannot be denied or concealed and justice cannot be avoided or escaped" and that those responsible for the crimes must be brought to justice.

"Srebrenica is our sea and our coast of salvation. We can all drown in it, but we all can also seek salvation in it," Ceric said.

Among those attending the ceremony were Bosnian top state officials, including the chairman of the country's three-man presidency, Sulejman Tihic, and Prime Minister Adnan Terzic.

None of the prominent Serb officials were in attendance. The Bosnian Serb government was represented by two of its deputy prime ministers from the ranks of the Muslim and Croat communities.

Also present were European Union Force (EUFOR) Commander General Gian Marco Chiarni, NATO Commander General Louis Weber, foreign ambassadors and the Hague war crimes tribunal's Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte.

On arriving in Srebrenica, del Ponte said she had come to pay tribute to the victims and meet the survivors, expressing regret that those most responsible for the massacre -- Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic -- were still at large.

I, of course, am very angry that Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are still at large, the chief prosecutor told reporters.

No political speeches were made at the ceremony.

The international community's High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, said in a written statement to the press that today it was impossible to fully grasp the horror of what had happened in Srebrenica 11 years ago.

Every time I think of Srebrenica I have to ask myself what more we could and should have done, what I could and should have done, to prevent the massacre in a town that was, after all, declared a United Nations safe area, he said.

At the time of the Srebrenica massacre, Schwarz-Schilling served as an international mediator for the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The High Representative described what had happened in Srebrenica as genocide, saying: we failed the victims of the genocide while they were alive and we will fail them after death unless their mortal remains are buried with dignity and the perpetrators of the crimes are brought to justice.

Schwarz-Schilling called on the Bosnian authorities to designate a day of mourning for the victims of the Srebrenica massacre and for all those killed in the country's 1992-1995 war.

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