Serbs’ Noisy Christmas Convoy Through Srebrenica Causes Fear

The Bosnian authorities were urged to take action after Serbs marked Orthodox Christmas Eve on Monday by driving in convoys playing loud Serbian songs through Srebrenica, Visegrad and Bratunac, areas where a minority of Bosniaks have returned after fleeing during the war.

One of the convoys of cars passed by the Potocari Memorial Centre, where thousands of victims of the July 1995 massacres of Bosniaks from Srebrenica are buried. Another, in Visegrad, was organised by supporters of the Serb nationalist Ravna Gora Chetnik movement.

The Potocari Memorial Centre said it has asked the state prosecutor's office to open an investigation into the incident.

It also called on the mayor of Srebrenica, which has a Serb majority population, to "finally condemn hate speech and ask the local police to take the necessary measures to apprehend and punish those responsible".

Emir Suljagic, the director of the Potocari Memorial Centre, said that a convoy that included tractors and cars, festooned with flags and playing loud, nationalistic music, drove along the road separating the Srebrenica burial site from the memorial complex.

What you see on this short clip are our Orthodox neigbors celebrating Christmas by driving literally through @SrebrenicaMC, playing loud nationalist music. We work in an openly hostile environment. All the while the international community continues to engage local authorities. pic.twitter.com/87McUlEIY4

— Emir Suljagić (@suljagicemir1) January 6, 2020

He said that the Potocari Memorial Centre was a state institution and should be "physically safe to do the work that the state has designated us to do".

Bakira Hasekic, president of the Women - Victims of War association of war...