Erdogan Vows Never to Forget the Srebrenica Genocide on 31st Anniversary
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan marked the 31st anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide on July 11 by honoring the victims in a message posted on social media. He emphasized that this tragedy will never be forgotten. Erdogan referred to the more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim victims, who were killed in 1995, as victims of one of the “most brutal genocides in history.”
In his message, Erdogan paid tribute to the martyrs and prayed for patience for their families and survivors, adding, “We will never forget Srebrenica.”
The Srebrenica genocide occurred in July 1995 after the city was captured by Serbian forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic. During this massacre, more than 8,372 Bosnian Muslim civilians were killed, a crime recognized as genocide by international courts.
After the city fell, thousands of Muslim residents sought refuge with Dutch troops assigned to the United Nations peacekeeping mission, who were stationed in an old factory. At the same time, others fled through forested routes towards areas under Bosnian forces’ control; this path later became known as the “death road” due to widespread killings.
Reports indicate that men who took refuge with the Dutch forces were separated from their families — women and children — and handed over to Serbian forces. Many of these men were subsequently executed by firing squad and buried in mass graves, while women and children lived as displaced persons, far from their homes, for years.
Previously, the city of Srebrenica had been declared a “safe area” under United Nations Security Council Resolution 819, and its protection was entrusted to peacekeeping forces. Nevertheless, this tragedy unfolded before the eyes of the international community, which has since been widely regarded as one of the United Nations’ and major powers’ most serious failures to prevent genocide.
Ratko Mladic was later sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague for his role in the massacre of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims.
