Officials marked on Sunday the 27th anniversary of a massacre that occurred in Srebrenica when artillery shells killed 74 and injured 100 Muslim Bosniaks in the town, including children who had gathered at the schoolyard.
Due to the pandemic, the participants were rare but they left 74 balloons that symbolize the lives that were lost as the schoolyard.
Deputy mayor Hamdija Fejzic and the head of the municipal assembly Nedib Smajic, as well as representatives of the Potocari Memorial Centre, genocide victims associations and the local Islamic Community, paid their respect to the victims.
“We have marked this occasion according to the current conditions,” Fejzic said.
“On that day, shells fired from Serb positions killed 74 and injured a great number of people. Many of those injured did not survive so that the total number of fatalities surpassed 100,” he said.
A chaotic situation in the besieged eastern Bosnian enclave caused many refugees to flood the streets as there was not enough accommodation for everybody who fled to Srebrenica from nearby villages.
A few shells landed on the small, overcrowded town.
One of the shells killed more than a dozen children who were playing soccer at the schoolyard.
The total number of dead rose to 105 as many died on the way to the hospital and as they were treated.
Nobody was charged for this massacre.
