In Remembrance of the Srebrenica Genocide

02 Aug In Remembrance of the Srebrenica Genocide

19 newly identified victims of the #Srebrenica #Genocide, which included 16 men, 2 teenage boys and a woman, were buried on Sunday, 11 July 2021 as thousands gathered at the memorial cemetery in #Bosnia and #Herzegovina. July 11th 2021 marks the 26th anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide and the Srebrenica Memorial Day in tribute to the victims of the worst massacre on European soil.

The Bosnian war broke out in 1992 fuelled by ethnic-nationalism during the disintegration of Yugoslavia into present day nation states. In the struggle for power, Serb military forces seized the city of Sarajevo in 1992 under General Ratko Mladić, also targeting control over Srebrenica and Žepa, a UN safety zone for displaced #BosniakMuslims. Between 1992 and 1995, the Bosnian Serb forces enacted a systematic ethnic cleansing operation of Bosniak #Muslims in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina under the command of Radovan Karadžić, killing around 100,000 civilians, forcibly displacing over 2 million, raping around 20,000-50,000 women and executing over 7,000 Bosniak Muslims taken prisoner. Of those that were massacred, 8,000 were killed in Srebrenica.

With over 40,000 people still declared missing since the genocide and new bodies still being discovered and buried, the world remembers the atrocities, trauma, injustice and hatred that had taken place pledging each subsequent year to never again let such war crimes take place. Such crimes against humanity fester under dehumanizing ideologies of ethnic, religious and racial superiority and #discrimination.
With the rise in ethnic and religious nationalism witnessed today globally, lessons of the past must serve as weary warnings of the potential harm such ideologies could have in the future. Peaceful #coexistence, mutual understanding, respect and #tolerance can only be achieved with community and governmental efforts to engage effectively in conflict transformation and #interfaith dialogue.

The #Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue – #Qatar firmly condemns acts of terror, racism and hatred and extends its greatest condolences to the victims’ families and the survivors of the Srebrenica Genocide this memorial day. The Center also calls upon all government authorities to stand by and prioritize the protection of ethnic and religious minority rights.

It is worth noting that the Center is one of the leading interfaith institutions in the Middle East region, operates with the mission of building bridges between people of different cultures, religions and civilizations in order to promote and instill values of peaceful co-existence, both locally and internationally, since its establishment in 2007. With the same mission, the Center signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2011 with the University of Sarajevo, @univerzitet.unsa and had organized a two-day International Conference entitled, “The Role of #Education in Promoting Global Peace and Tolerance in South East Europe”, in 2012 on the 20th anniversary of the siege of the University of Sarajevo in efforts to promote humanistic values and worldviews in education systems. The conference gathered eminent professors from 13 countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Lebanon, Macedonia, #Palestine, United States, Slovenia, Serbia and Turkey) to discuss the importance of education in combatting ethnic, racial and religious hatred and curriculum design. Prof. Dr. Ibrahim Saleh Al Naimi, Chairman of the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue and Prof. Dr. Aisha Yusuf Al-Mannai, Vice Chairman attended and addressed the conference, which then concluded with a visit to the Memorial of Children murdered in besieged Sarajevo during 1992 – 1995, laying down flowers in tribute at the pedestal bearing the names of 521 murdered children.