Survivors of the Srebrenica massacre set out with thousands of others Wednesday on a solemn 105-kilometre march ahead of the 20th anniversary of the killing of nearly 8,000 Muslims near the UN-protected enclave. Their route across Bosnia retraces the one taken by the men and boys fleeing Bosnian Serb forces who later overran Srebrenica, setting the stage for what many describe as a genocide. At the United Nations on Wednesday, Russia vetoed a draft resolution recognising the massacre as genocide.
Within days of the July 11, 1995 assault by the Serb troops nearly 8,000 of those men and boys were massacred in what was Europe's worst atrocity since World War II. In total some 10,000 to 15,000 Muslim men and boys tried to escape on foot through the forests to Muslim-controlled territory in the hours before the Serbs arrived. The lucky ones reached Muslim territory within five days, although some took over a month to reach safety. Some survivors have joined in the three-day memorial march along the 105-kilometre (65-mile) route, heading from the eastern town of Nezuk to Srebrenica.
The marchers were walking in the opposite direction taken by the fleeing Muslims, who arrived in Nezuk after escaping Srebrenica. "It took me seven days to reach Nezuk. It was horrible... dead people, blood everywhere. I saw my neighbours, friends, relatives, but they couldn't be helped," one participant, Nedzad Mujic, 46, told AFP. "We were all fighting for our own lives. Some people even left their own children behind," said Mujic, struggling not to cry. The marchers are due to arrive at a Srebrenica memorial centre in Potocari on the eve of a commemoration of the massacre's 20th anniversary on Saturday.