Serbian PM jeered and pelted by crowd at Srebrenica

Though the United Nations declared Srebrenica a safe haven for civilians, the Serbs invaded the city and went on a killing spree. No more genocides. Srebrenica is a call to action.

Shortly before arriving, he condemned the “monstrous crime” in nearby Srebrenica, where some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces.

A “deeply disappointed” Camil Durakovic, the Bosnian Muslim mayor of Srebrenica, issued a quick apology to Vucic for the raging outburst. His administration led the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation alliance airstrikes against Serb positions, which eventually ended the Bosnian war. His dark-suited security staff rushed him up the graveyard’s steep hill, among the victims’ gravestones.

Later, the prime minister can be seen being hustled away from the furious crowd, surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards.

“We were attacked from all sides”.

The “masses broke the fences and turned against us”, Vucic’s associate, Suzana Vasiljevic told AP. “He had not done anything here.'”.

As ex- President Clinton said in his remarks honoring the 20th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica today, it took courage for PM Vucic to attend the commemoration.

Serbia and Bosnian Serbs deny the killings were “genocide”, but Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic came to represent his country at the commemoration.

“We confirm our strong commitment to help bring the perpetrators to justice”.

Serbia’s Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic sits alone before the speeches during a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in Potocari, near Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina July 11, 2015. Global courts labeled the crime an act of genocide.

Earlier, Mogherini and other dignitaries, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton, spoke of how the massacre – begun 20 years ago to the day – should serve as a lesson to the world.

The Serbian prime minister also met with representatives of the Mothers of Srebrenica association, who pinned a flower of remembrance on his lapel.

“One can not describe with words how I feel today”, said Zijada Hajdarevic as she escorted the remains of her brother on Thursday from the morgue to the cemetery, where her grandfather and other close relatives are all buried.

This was not the first time that top Serbian officials visited Srebrenica for commemorations.

Two decades after the July 11, 1995, Srebrenica massacre, Muslim sentiments toward Christians have improved, according to the Pew Research Center.

The outnumbered Dutch troops who were part of a United Nations peacekeeping force, watched as Serb soldiers rounded up thousands of men. On Saturday, Bert Koenders, the foreign minister of the Netherlands, says his country “shares responsibility” for the massacre.

From 1992 to 1995, more than 100,000 people died in an ethnic war that tore Bosnia at the seams. “Most deaths occurred during the Serbian forces offensive in 1992 and the war criminal Ratko Mladic is now on trial for genocide at the worldwide Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at the Hague for events in the region of Prijedor, further west”.

The bones of 136 newly identified victims will be interred beneath marble gravestones in the Potocari memorial cemetery in eastern Bosnia, in what has become an annual ritual as the graves are discovered.