8,373 cups in honour of Srebrenica genocide victims in Venice on July 11

Stotenema.org

A symbolic exhibition in honour of the Srebrenica genocide victims will be installed on July 11 in the Italian city of Venice, the author, Bosnian-American activist, Aida Sehovic announced on social networks.

What Sehovic calls “a nomadic monument” consists of 8,373 small cups of coffee put together in one place, which represents the official number of the genocide victims from the eastern Bosnian Srebrenica enclave, killed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

The exhibition is called ‘Where are you’ and, according to the author, is aimed to present the victory over the forces that deny genocide and incite ignoring of the crimes from the past.

In April 1993, the UN had declared the besieged enclave of the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica a safe area under 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.

More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed in the UN-protected Srebrenica enclave in the days following July 11, 1995, and so far the remains of more than 6,600 have been found and buried.

Bosnia's Missing Persons Institute confirmed that 33 identified victims were prepared for this year’s burial, with the youngest victim, Osman Cvrk, who was aged 16 at the time of the death.

Two international courts, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), ruled that the massacre was an act of genocide.

International and regional courts have sentenced 45 people for what happened in Srebrenica to a total of more than 700 years behind bars.