Last weekend, forensic experts had finished exhuming remains from what they said was the biggest mass grave from the Bosnia war. The team unearthed 144 complete and 1,009 partial skeletons at the site in Kamenica, a village in eastern Bosnia near the border with Serbia. 
The grave contained victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. The Serb forces separated thousands of men and boys (approximately 8,000) from the women and killed them, dumping the bodies in mass graves. The Kamenica mass grave also contained bodies of women, elderly men and children, as well as a large number of shells and bandages. The bodies had been brought to Kamenica from elsewhere to conceal the evidence.
"Kamenica is the biggest mass grave" found since the 1992-1995 war, said Murat Hurtic, a member of the forensic team. "For 10 years, this mass grave was not covered. The grass grew over the bones because the perpetrators filled the pit with bodies so much that they could not cover it with earth". Thousands of victims have been exhumed from about 60 mass graves around Srebrenica, while more than 2,500 have been identified by DNA analysis.
The massacre is the only event from the Bosnian war classified as genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The two men accused of masterminding the massacre, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, have been in hiding for the last 11 years. - Source: BBC
The Yugoslav wars was one of the greatest tragedies in the world, simply because it was on Europe’s doorsteps, it happened in very modern times and it was stoppable. The war particularly in Bosnia can never be forgotten.
The war can be summarised by the following words “Ethnic Cleansing”, “unprofessional conduct of UN troops” and “War Criminals in hiding”.
A lot of people were delibrately killed, women and young girls were raped, houses burned down, people driven out, places of worship destroyed, cemorories vandelised. Latest figures reveal that approximately half of Bosnia's 4,4 million inhabitants were displaced during the war.
The UN and NATO troops were badly deployed. Can we forget the cowardace faced by the Dutch UNPROFOR troops in Srebrenica? They were there to protect the Bosnian Muslims but when they were surrounded by the Serbs - instead of fighting back they proceeded to hand the Muslim refugees over to the Serbs. Not a single shot was fired by the Dutch troops. The Serbs separated the men and boys and we know what happened next. It was ironic that afterwards the Serbs laid a party for the Dutch troops and they were seen to be enjoying themselves drinking and celebrating with the Serbs.
Whilst fighting the Serbs, little is mentioned of how the presence of UN troops generated the growth of the sex industry. Women were trafficked from all across Europe mostly via Serbia to serve the troops. Many countries such as the UK provided special clinics for the troops to check for sexual transmitted diseases - So the people we went to fight against were providing services to our troops!
And finally, why have all the war criminal not been captured yet? The biggest of them all Slobodan Milosovic died of a heart attack during his trial (most people think it was suicide) but all the others have remained in hiding, most likely in Serbia. Should we not be sanctioning against Serbia until they find these criminals. Should we be contemplating Serbia joining NATO and the European Union with blood on its hands? Maybe by joinig the EU, it will stop another massacre happening within Europe’s backyard.
Additional Reading:
Video Clip from BBC Storyville on YouTube: Genocide in Bosnia
BBC: Timeline: Siege of Srebrenica
Advocacynet: Rebuilding Srebrenica
Truthnews: Bosnia, Rwanda, and UN Peacekeeping
Amnestry International USA: Sex trade in Kosovo
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