UN's Ban Ki-moon visits Srebrenica memorial

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited the Srebrenica memorial cemetery Thursday, paying his respects to the Muslims killed by Serb forces 17 years ago and acknowledging that the world did too little to prevent the massacre, according to dpa. Ban again said that the international community should have done more to stop the genocide in the eastern Bosnian town in 1995. "Srebrenica is one of the darkest chapters in modern history," he said. "The UN did not meet its responsibility, the international community did not prevent genocide." In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces overran Srebrenica, a UN-protected Muslim safe haven on Serbian soil, driving Muslim women, children and the elderly out before executing around 8,000 boys and men. "While I look over these endless rows of graves - eight thousand - I want to say that this is a holy ground not only for families of the victims, but also for the world family of nations," he said laying a wreath. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2007 that the massacre was genocide carried out by the Bosnian Serb army, and several Serb officers were convicted of genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal. Ban was due to complete a week-long, seven-country tour of the western Balkans later Thursday.