Obama said in a statement, a copy of which was forwarded to Hina, that on the anniversary of the Srebrenica tragedy, 11 July, tribute should be paid to over 8,000 innocent men and boys who were brutally killed in Srebrenica 17 years ago in "a brazen act of genocide that shocked the world."
"A measure of justice is finally being served for the victims in courts in The Hague and Bosnia and Herzegovina as the perpetrators of this atrocity, including Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, are now being called to account for their actions."
"We all desire continued reconciliation and peaceful coexistence for the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Balkans, because achieving that will be the ultimate repudiation of the evil that started the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina and elsewhere in the region and that led to the Srebrenica genocide," the U.S. president said in the statement.
In mid-July 1995, over 8,000 local Bosnian Muslims were killed when Serb forces led by Mladic raided Srebrenica which was a UN safe haven at the time.