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Zagreb - The Croatian Sabor on Thursday commemorated the victims of the Srebrenica massacre committed in 1995, at a ceremony with the message - Never again and a minute's silence.
Eighteen years ago the Srebrenica tragedy occurred as the final act of the four-year war horror in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), MP Nedzad Hodzic of the ethnic minorities parliamentary group, recalled. In that eastern Bosnian town more than eight thousand men aged between 12 and 77 were separated from the women and their families and brutally eliminated, Hodzic said.
"Husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, grandsons and grandfathers were killed. Their wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, granddaughters and grandmothers were herded into buses and driven somewhere where they didn't belong. Srebrenica was cleansed of its residents", Hodzic recalled.
In a safe haven in the presence of UNPROFOR international peace keepers, in the heart of Europe on the eve of the 21st century a genocide was committed, he said. He recalled that the bodies of those killed were buried in mass graves and later transferred to secondary graves so that any trace of the crime could be wiped away. Hodzic expressed his respect to the victims of the Srebrenica tragedy and his condolences to their families.
He claimed that the Europe of the time of the Srebrenica tragedy had closed its eyes and did not wish to see the everyday suffering and pain of hundreds of thousands and even millions of people. The Europe of that time could have prevented the tragedy in BiH and in Croatia too but it did not, he said adding that the question why it didn't will hover over Europe in its future. "That's a shame that every decent European will always feel when we remember Srebrenica", MP Hodzic said. Because the then Europe did not prevent the war and genocide, Hodzic urged colleagues in the contemporary Europe and the world to say that remembrance and piety are not enough.
Contemporary Europe can and must be a guarantee of peace, it can and must open its eyes, it can and must listen to needs and react in time, Hodzic said. MPs today bore the Srebrenica flower on their lapels in memory of the genocide committed in that town.