Mothers of Srebrenica Demand EU Delegation to Apologize for Paying Respects

Srebrenica/BETAPHOTO/HINA/FENA/Harun Muminovic

In a July 17 letter to the EU Delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Mothers of Srebrenica and several other Bosniack associations demanded that the European officials paying respects to Serb victims of the war in Bosnia should apologize to the victims of genocide in Srebrenica or leave the country.

"You cannot come and pay respects to the victims of genocide first, and then to the genocide perpetrators. It is not, and cannot be the same. Your attitude towards the victims of genocide is extremely hypocritical and offensive. We are aware that some among you do not care, but if you don’t respect the victims of genocide, you should at least respect the resolutions of the European Parliament," the associations said in the letter.

The ambassadors of five EU states countries visited a memorial in the town of Bratunac on July 16, laying wreaths at the central memorial cross in memory of the Serb victims killed in Podrinje and Birac during the last war in Bosnia. The wreaths they laid bore the inscription "In memory of all innocent victims."

The director of the Potocari Memorial Center, Emir Suljagic, wrote on X that he was "absolutely shocked" that the EU delegation had paid respects to, as he put it, members of the Bosnian Serb army at the Military Cemetery.