Srebrenica is the place where thousands of people were killed because of their religion and that must happen never again, said Samuel Brownback, the US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, as he laid flowers at the Potocari Memorial on Tuesday, honouring Srebrenica genocide victims.
If the world wants to make progress in peace then the religious communities need to live in peace and not only tolerate each other, said the US official who is in Bosnia within his visit to the region, where he is set to hold meetings with the countries’ officials and religious leaders.
“On Monday I will meet the Albanian government and other leaders in the region in a conference on how the religious leaders can be a part of the peace process,” Brownback was quoted as saying.
“Also, I insist on religious freedoms for everyone,” he added.
Brownback se susreo sa predstavnicima Memorijalnog centra i majkama Srebrenice koje su istakle da im znači svaka dobronamjerna posjeta. Sjedinjene Američke Države uvijek su podržavale slobodu religije koja bi trebala biti most spajanja među ljudima u cijelom svijetu @N1infoSA pic.twitter.com/Luk93JlX8f
— Semir Mustafić (@MustaficSemir) November 12, 2019
Mothers of Srebrenica welcomed the ambassador at the Potocari Memorial, which is the final resting place for thousands of victims of the mass killings from the 192-95 Bosnian war.
“Visits mean a lot, they come, they go… Every well-intended visit is welcome, we feel comfortable with anyone who comes here to hear us. To hear about our sorrow, our pain and to get to know what had happened to us,” said Fadila Efendic, a representative of the ‘Mothers of Srebrenica’ association.
What hurts the most, Efendic stressed, is the denial of genocide.
“This is where our most loved ones were killed and it would be fair if everyone faced the truth and what was done so that it happens never again to anyone,” she added.
On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces overran the eastern Bosnian enclave and rounded up the town’s Muslim Bosniaks, separated men from women and little children and systematically executed some 8,000 men and boys.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice later ruled that the massacre was an act of genocide.
