Bosnia buries hundreds of Srebrenica massacre victims

Bosnia buried 409 victims of the Srebrenica massacre on Thursday, including a newborn baby, on the 18th anniversary of the worst slaughter in post-war Europe. More than 15,000 people travelled to Potocari, near Srebrenica, to attend the mass funeral of victims whose remains were found in mass graves since last year and identified almost two decades after the 1995 killing. A downpour of summer rain hit the memorial cemetery in the late afternoon where tearful mourners sat near rows of coffins draped in green cloth, while others laid flowers on freshly dug graves. Among the coffins was a tiny casket containing the remains of a baby girl who died shortly after birth in July 1995 at the UN base in Potocari, where her mother Hava Muhic had tried to shelter from the Bosnian Serb attack. Topped with a white rose wreath, the casket was placed in a grave with a sign that read simply: "The Muhic newborn". The baby's mother, her head covered with a red veil, stroked the coffin as she murmured a Muslim prayer through sobs. The girl, whose remains were found last year, was buried next to the grave of her father Hajrudin, a victim of the massacre in which 8,000 men and boys were executed by Serb forces after they overran the UN-protected town. Many of the mourners attending the mass funeral service lined up in front of the coffins praying, their hands turned towards the sky, in the drizzling rain. Among the 409 victims laid to rest were two women, aged 19 and 73, as well as 44 boys aged between 14 and 18, officials said. Dzemka Oric, 60, buried her son Avdija who was 15 at the time of the slaughter. His remains were placed next to the graves of brother Avdo, 21, and father Omer. Kneeling before the grave, in a blue dress and scarf around her head, Oric crumbled wet soil as she sobbed while praying, her jaw trembling. "If I could glance at him once more, if I could hear him calling me 'Mother' once again," she said through sobs.  The sombre ceremony fell on the same day as the UN Yugoslav war crimes court reinstated a genocide charge against Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, accused also of masterminding the Srebrenica massacre. Srebrenica was a UN-protected Muslim enclave until July 11, 1995, when it was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces. Dutch peacekeepers in the so-called "safe area", where thousands of Muslims from surrounding villages had gathered for protection, helplessly looked on as the massacre unfolded. The Serbs loaded thousands of men and boys on to trucks, executed them and then threw their bodies into mass graves. The remains of 5,657 victims, identified through DNA tests, have already been buried in Potocari since the process started a decade ago. Their remains -- often only a handful of bones -- were found in dozens of mass graves scattered in the area, said Amor Masovic, head of the Bosnia's Institute for Missing Persons.  But many victims remain unidentified and more are yet to be found. Munira Subasic laid to rest her son Nermin -- who was 17 at the time of the massacre -- while the remains of her husband, also killed in Srebrenica, are yet to be found.  "Eighteen years later, I have found only two bones belonging to my son," she said solemnly. Zumra Krdzic lost her husband, son and "many cousins". "A book would not be enough to list the names of everyone I have lost," Krdzic said. But the Srebrenica massacre -- judged an act of genocide by two international courts -- still divides Bosnia's Muslims and Serbs. Many Serbs refuse to recognise the genocide and turn a blind eye to commemorative services in Srebrenica. After escaping justice for years, both Karadzic and Bosnian Serb army chief Ratko Mladic -- arrested in 2009 and 2011 respectively -- are now being tried by the UN court for war crimes and genocide. So far, 38 former Bosnian Serb military or police officials have been convicted, including some for genocide, for their role in the Srebrenica killings, both by the UN and Bosnia's own war crimes courts.