Council of Europe to mark Srebrenica genocide

By Zehra Nur Duz

ANKARA (AA) – A memorial service will be held at the Council of Europe next week to mark the 1995 Srebrenica genocide which saw the massacre of more than 8,000 Bosniaks, the Turkish foreign minister said Friday.

“The Council of Europe will commemorate the Srebrenica genocide victims for the first time in its history and Turkey will contribute to this ceremony,” said Mevlut Cavusoglu at a conference in Turkey's central province of Konya.

Cavusoglu underlined that the council will hold the commemoration on July 11.

More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed after Bosnian Serb forces attacked the UN "safe area" of Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the presence of Dutch troops tasked with acting as international peacekeepers.

Srebrenica was besieged by Serb forces who were trying to wrest territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form their own state.

The UN Security Council had declared Srebrenica a "safe area" in the spring of 1993. However, Serb troops led by General Ratko Mladic -- who now faces genocide charges at The Hague -- overran the UN zone.

The Dutch troops failed to act as Serb forces occupied the area, killing about 2,000 men and boys on July 11 alone. Some 15,000 Srebrenica people fled into the surrounding mountains but Serb troops hunted down and killed 6,000 of them in the forests.