prijava
SARAJEVO, April 1 (FENA) - The first collective burial in the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center was conducted 15 years ago, when the first 600 victims of the Srebrenica genocide were buried in the memorial center in July 1995. To date, 6,575 victims have been buried in the complex of the Memorial Center.
Spokeswoman of the Missing Persons Institute of BiH, Lejla Čengić, said in an interview with FENA that 20 victims of genocide have been identified so far that should be buried on July 11 this year in the Memorial Center in Potočari. Their families have declared that they want to bury their mortal remains.
Čengić stated that among the identified victims are two minors who were 16 when they were killed. Vesid Ibrić was 16 years old when he was killed. His remains were exhumed in 2001 from the mass grave Liplje, in the Zvornik area.
Faris Mehmedović was also 16 years old when he was killed and his remains were exhumed from two secondary mass graves. Parts of the skeleton were found in 2000 in the mass grave Glogova, in the Bratunac area, and his remains were also found in 2009 in the mass grave Zalazje, in the Srebrenica area.
Čengić noted that this is not yet the final number of victims to be buried in Potočari this year. It is planned in the following period to carry out identification in the Podrinje Identification Project (PIP) in Tuzla, up until the burial in July.
“The Podrinje Identification Project, in addition to the remains of the victims for whom the families have decided to bury them, also keeps the remains of victims of the genocide for whom the families have not yet decided to go forth with the burial.
These are the remains of victims who have been officially identified, on the basis of DNA analysis and by family members, but mostly because of the incomplete remains, the families they have not yet decided to bury them,” explained Čengić.
Čengil also added that the PIP currently holds the remains of 47 victims who have been officially identified.
Also, the PIP holds the remains of 133 victims identified by DNA analysis but not yet by the families. These are active cases that will be identified in the following period.
Čengić reminded that the remains of these victims were exhumed in the earlier period from mass graves in the area of Donje Podrinje.
She also noted that the last mass grave from which the victims of the Srebrenica genocide were exhumed was a mass grave found in a landfill in Kozluk, in the area of Zvornik in 2015, from which 55 mortal remains were exhumed, of which 15 complete and 40 incomplete remains of victims of the Srebrenica genocide.
(FENA) S. R.
