Talha Öztürk
07 July 2020•Update: 08 July 2020
BELGRADE, Serbia
Bosnia and Herzegovina opened a photo exhibition on Tuesday as part of the 25th anniversary of Srebrenica genocide.
The exhibition in Srebrenica town aims at contextualizing the 1995 genocide, in which over 8,300 Muslims were killed by Serbian forces.
It is organized by renowned Bosnian photographer Ziyah Gafic which features works by Paul Lowe, Ron Haviv, Tony Birtley, Gary Knight, and Rod Nordland.
The exhibition put on display 80 photographs and a six-hour video and they will be a permanent feature at the Srebrenica Memorial Center.
In the early 1990s, Srebrenica was besieged by Serbian forces trying to wrest territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form their own state.
In the spring of 1993, the UN Security Council declared Srebrenica a "safe area." However, Serbian 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 Serbian forces occupied the area, killing about 2,000 men and boys on July 11 alone. Some 15,000 Srebrenica residents fled into the surrounding mountains, but Serbian troops hunted them down and killed 6,000 in the forests.
More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed after Bosnian Serb forces attacked Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the presence of Dutch troops meant to act as international peacekeepers.
