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Over 6,300 participants from around the world set off on Wednesday morning for a three-day Peace March toward Potocari. The event commemorates the thousands of victims killed during the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995.
The march covers a 100-kilometer route—the same path thousands of Bosniaks took in July 1995 in a desperate attempt to reach free territory. While they marched toward safety, the route ultimately became a dead end for the thousands who were captured and killed.
Over 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed in and around Srebrenica by the Army of Republika Srpska under Ratko Mladic. Alongside the mass killings, between 25,000 and 30,000 Bosniaks, primarily women and children, were abused and forcibly driven from their homes.
The tragedy marked the first legally recognized genocide in Europe since World War II. Before the massacre, the United Nations had declared Srebrenica a safe area under its official protection. However, a deployment of approximately 350 lightly armed Dutch soldiers serving as a UN Protection Force was unable to prevent the mass killings.
While the Dutch government resigned in 2002 over its failure to prevent the killings, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic apologized for the "crime" in 2013 but refused to classify it as a genocide.
The march concludes with the participants arriving in Potocari on July 10. On July 11, they will attend burial services for ten newly identified genocide victims at the Srebrenica Memorial Center cemetery, where 6,765 victims are already interred.
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