North Macedonia Municipality to Install Srebrenica Memorial

The Cair municipality in Skopje has announced ahead of the anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide on July 11 that it will soon install a memorial commemorating the victims of worst atrocity in post-World War II Europe.

On Monday, a delegation from North Macedonia presented the plan for the construction of the memorial to the Bosniak member of the tripartite Bosnian presidency, Sefik Dzaferovic, during a visit to Sarajevo.

The delegation comprised Cair's mayor Visar Ganiu, an MP from North Macedonia's junior ruling Democratic Union for Integration party, Izet Mexhiti, and the former head of a small political party called the Bosniak League, Rafet Muminovic.

Ganiu invited Daferovic to attend the unveiling of the memorial, the date for which is not yet known.

Dzaferovic said that the project represents an important contribution to maintaining the memory of the victims of the Srebrenica genocid.

A statement published on the Bosnian presidency website reported that Dzaferovic also said that "everyone in the region should accept the verdicts of international courts regarding the Srebrenica genocide and that truth and justice are the only sound foundation on which to restore trust and build a better future".

The genocide took place after Bosnian Serb forces overran the UN-declared 'safe haven' of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia on July 11, 1995. In the days that followed, they executed more than 7,000 men and boys.

In 2010, North Macedonia supported a European Parliament resolution on Srebrenica that describe the massacres as genocide, and pledged to honour the anniversary.

Each year in July, Bosniaks from North Macedonia, including some whose relatives died in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, hold a peace march in Skopje...