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Srebrenica massacre remembered

Commemoration - 534 victims buried at ceremony
Commemoration - 534 victims buried at ceremony

Bosnia's Muslims have marked the anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, 14 years after Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

The massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Serbian forces on the 11 July 1995, is to be commemorated for the first time across Europe.

Tens of thousands of Muslims from across Bosnia gathered in the town for the commemoration and for the burial of 534 newly identified victims.

The remains of the victims, aged between 14 and 72, were in most cases found in secondary mass graves where they had been moved from initial burial sites in an attempt by Serb leaders to cover up war crimes.

In January, the European Parliament proclaimed the date a day of commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide.

While they admitted in 2004 that their forces killed 8,000 Srebrenica Muslims, Bosnian Serb authorities condemned the resolution, reflecting the revival of nationalist rhetoric that triggered the country's 1992-1995 war.

In another act of defiance last week, Serb deputies in the Bosnian parliament blocked an initiative to declare 11 July the Srebrenica genocide remembrance day in the former Yugoslav republic.

The Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, suspected of being the main architect of the massacre, is awaiting trial before the International Court of Justice.

His army chief and co-accused Ratko Mladic is still on the run.