The annual March of Peace will for the first time this year pass the exact same route that thousands of men and boys took in 1995, fleeing from Srebrenica enclave after it fell to Bosnian Serb forces, organisers of the march confirmed.
The March of Peace is an annual peace walk in Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in memory of the victims of mass murders in Srebrenica in 1995. The march gathers thousands of participants from the country and the rest of the world, and it takes the opposite direction of that the survivors took in the 1990s.
“The part of the route we've seen today is the same route that Srebrenica people took trying to reach free territory, and which hasn't been available to the march participants before. It will open this year,” said Munir Habibovic, one the organisers.
The first march was held in 2005, marking the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacres that, as the international court ruled, constituted a genocide. In April 1993 the UN had declared the besieged enclave of the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica a safe area under the UN protection. However, in July 1995 the Dutch battalion soldiers failed to prevent the town's capture by the Bosnian Serb forces and the massacre that followed.
Every year on July 11 a commemoration for the buried victims is held at the Potocari Memorial Centre, while a group funeral is performed for the discovered remains of the missing victims.
Members of the organisation committee for the 23rd anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide Nermin Alivukovic said the preparations for this year's event are ongoing in line with the plan, adding that the march is the most extensive activity within the overall commemoration.
“This year the March of Peace will take the identical route that the Srebrenica people took from Srebrenica to Tuzla. More than thousand lost their lives here at the famous Bukva site. We can see the items belonging to those who were killed here,” said Alivukovic.
