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Turkish president said Thursday that history will
never forget the 1995 Srebrenica genocide that massacred more than
8,000 innocent people.
“Srebrenica genocide, which took place before the
eyes of Europe and claimed lives of 8,372 innocent people, will
never be forgotten throughout the history,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan
said on Twitter.
In his post, Erdogan also conveyed his condolences
to Bosnian people on the 24th anniversary of the massacre and wished
God’s mercy to those martyred in the incident.
More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were
killed after Bosnian Serb forces attacked the UN "safe area" of
Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the presence of Dutch troops tasked
with acting as international peacekeepers.
Srebrenica was besieged by Serb forces who were
trying to wrest territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form
their own state.
The UN Security Council had declared Srebrenica a
"safe area" in the spring of 1993. However, Serb troops led by Gen.
Ratko Mladic -- later found guilty of war crimes, crimes against
humanity, and genocide -- overran the UN zone.
The Dutch troops failed to act as Serb forces
occupied the area, killing about 2,000 men and boys on July 11
alone.
Some 15,000 Srebrenica people fled into the
surrounding mountains, but Serb troops hunted down and killed 6,000
of them in the forests.
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