Tomo Vuksic, the head of the Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina, expressed sincere condolences on the occasion of the upcoming 28th anniversary and commemoration to the Srebrenica genocide victims, saying that the graves of the victims are the great preachers of peace.

“On the occasion of the commemoration of the 28th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, I express my sincere condolences to all those bereaved by the loss of their family members and friends. Each victim was someone's father or mother, brother or sister, son or daughter, wife or husband, fiancé or fiancée, friend or acquaintance. That is why their pain is deep. Because we have the same Creator, for the rest of us all the victims whose lives were taken away are our brothers and sisters, and we sincerely and fraternally sympathise with everyone,” said Vuksic, Metropolitan archbishop of Metropolitan Archdiocese of Vrhbosna.

He expressed his “closeness to the families of those whose remains will be buried this year, after they were exhumed earlier from mass graves, and the process of their identification could not be completed until now.”

“The graves of victims are great preachers of peace! And they call for every life to be respected and preserved. This, we believe, is their most important message and lesson to all living beings. And we ask the Lord God, the merciful Creator and the only Lord of life, to reward all the deceased with eternal life and to give hope to the living out of this sadness,” said Vuksic.

The remains of another 30 victims will be buried this week at the Potocari Memorial Centre, with the youngest victim aged 15 at the time of the death and other two juvenile victims aged 16 and 17.

Over 8,000 persons were killed in the genocide, mainly men and boys. To date, the remains of 6,652 have been buried at the Potocari memorial. The remains of 237 have been buried elsewhere according to their families’ wishes.

For the Srebrenica genocide, the Hague war crimes tribunal sentenced to life former Bosnian Serb political and military leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.