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| (Photo: Armin durgut/AP/picture alliance) |
On the 27th anniversary of the massacre that killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys, the Netherlands has apologized to victims' families for the failure of Dutch peacekeepers to stop the massacre.
The Netherlands offered its "deepest apologies" for the role of Dutch peacekeepers in the Srebrenica genocide on Monday.
27 years ago, Bosnian Serb forces brutally massacred nearly 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in a brutal attack.
For the first time since the 1995 massacre, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren has apologized to survivors for the failure of Dutch peacekeepers to stop the killings.
"The international community has failed to provide adequate protection to the people of Srebrenica," Ollongren said during an event in Potokari.
The Dutch government is responsible for the circumstances in which this failure occurred and we apologize for that."
What happened in Serbarintsa?
The Srebrenica killings in the 1990s were the last phase of the Balkan conflict.
Bosnian Serb forces overran the UN-monitored zone in the Srebrenica region, massacring 8,000 Muslim men and boys and dumping their bodies in mass graves.
Dutch forces were responsible for protecting the safe zone, but peacekeepers, the Dutch government and the United Nations were also criticized for their failure to stop the killings.
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| (Photo: Armin durgut/AP/picture alliance) |
An international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia declared the massacre to be genocide.
It was one of the worst episodes of the fight, with a total of about 100,000 casualties.
The Dutch government also apologized to the peacekeepers
Dutch courts had already ruled that the Netherlands was partly responsible for whatever happened in Srebrenica and that the survivors had to be compensated.
"The events of 1995 caused profound human suffering that is still felt today," Ollongren told the survivors.
We cannot relieve you of this pain. But what we can do is look through the eyes of history."
Last month, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also apologized for the government's treatment of hundreds of Dutch soldiers who were sent to defend the Srebrenica enclave during the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict.
He admitted that for the unit sent to keep the peace in eastern Bosnia, it was an "impossible task" because they did not have the necessary resources.
More victims were buried on the anniversary of the genocide
Monday, July 11, was the 27th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, with thousands of people gathering to commemorate the event.
Fifty new victims who were identified on this occasion were buried with dignity.
The mass burial of identified victims of the massacre is held on July 11 every year.
Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic's army attacked these Muslim settlements on the same day and thousands of Muslims were killed. Mladic was sentenced to life in prison for the crimes, which remain in prison.
According to an institute on missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in recent years it has become almost impossible to find the remains of victims and their remains at the site of the massacre, although some 1,200 people are still missing.
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