20th anniversary of Srebrenica massacre
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian War, which took place after a Dutch United Nations peacekeepers ceded control of the town to Serb forces, leaving thousands of Bosnian Muslim refugees at their mercy on July 11, 1995.
Approximately 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed by Serbian soldiers and paramilitary. The bodies of the victims were dumped in mass graves in and around the town in Europe's worst massacre since the Holocaust.
The massacre occurred a few short months prior to the December 195 end of the more than three-and-a-half year war.
In this picture, a Bosnian special forces soldier returns fire as he and civilians come under attack from Serbian snipers in downtown Sarajevo on April 6, 1992 at the very beginning of the conflict.
Injured by mortar
After taking control of Srebrenica on July 11, 1995, Serb forces began committing war crimes, murdering men and boys with summary executions as well as raping Bosnian Muslim women, in some cases in front of their own children.
Over 20,000 Bosnian refugees had looked to United Nations troops based in Potocari for protection, however, according to survivor accounts, some Dutch UN troops witnessed acts of genocide without moving to prevent the violence.
The United Nations operated in the region prior to the start of the Bosnia War.
Here, a man supports the head of a Bosnian woman badly injured by a Serbian mortar shell in Sarajevo as she is transported to the hospital on June 27, 1992.
Wounded in Srebrenica
The Srebrenica atrocity is considered to be Europe's worst since World War II. The killings, in what was then a UN-safe haven, came shortly before the end of the country's 1992-95 war.
The Serbs systematically separated Bosnian Muslim boys and men from the women, tied their hands and shot them, dumping the bodies in mass graves.
Two figures, Gen. Ratko Mladic of the Bosnian Serb forces and Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, were charged with war crimes following an investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague.
Here, a badly injured Bosnian is carried on a stretcher by three Canadian UN soldiers as residents look on, in Srebrenica on April 25, 1993.
Dutch UN troops
Two Dutch soldiers ride on an armored vehicle in a UN convoy of 56 engineering vehicles on their way to Lukavac on February 28, 1994 in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Another Dutch convoy reached the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica the same day.
Refugees from Srebrenica
An unnamed woman and her mother, refugees from Srebrenica, cry together because they don't know the fate of the rest of their family, at a UN base about 7.5 miles south of Tuzla, and 60 miles north of Sarajevo on July 13, 1995.
Soldiers on Guard
Swedish UN soldiers guard the entrance to a makeshift medical aid area at the UN base at Tuzla airport on July 14, 1995.
Overrun safe haven
Refugees from the overrun UN safe haven enclave of Srebrenica look through razor-wire at newly arriving refugees on a UN base about 7.5 miles south of Tuzla and 60 miles north of Sarajevo on July 13, 1995.
Young Muslim refugee
A young Muslim refugee from Srebrenica watches as other refugees pass in a UN armored vehicle, as they arrive at the UN base south of Tuzla, some 60 miles north of Sarajevo on July 13, 1995.
United Nations peacekeepers
Dutch UN peacekeepers sit on top of an Armored Personnel Carrier as Muslim refugees from Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, gather in the village of Potocari, some 3 miles north of Srebrenica on July 13, 1995.
A Dutch court ruled in 2014 that Dutch peacekeepers were responsible for the deaths of 300 Bosnian Muslim men and boys killed during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
Dutch UN soldiers
Dutch soldiers sit in Potocari, the Dutch UN base, north of the enclave of Srebrenica, July 16, 1995. Bosnian Serbs captured Srebrenica on July 11, 1995.
Serbs guard Bosnians
Two Serbian policemen guard a group of Bosnian Muslim men from the Srebrenica enclave who had crossed into Yugoslavia from Bosnia in the Serb town of Uzice, some 155 miles south of Belgrade on August 5, 1995.
Town of Srebrenica
The eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, with its mosque (left) and Orthodox church (right) is pictured in March 2005.
Karadzic and Mladic
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic (right) and Bosnian Serb army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic visit the Mt.Vlasic front line, some 60 miles northwest of Sarajevo in April 1995.
Mladic and Karadzic were charged with war crimes following an investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague in connection with the Srebrenica massacre.
Bosnian Serb Mlasic
Bosnian Serb army Gen. Ratko Mladic, center, observes Bosnian government forces positions in Gorazde, eastern Bosnia, surrounded by his bodyguards on April 16, 1994
Mladic and Karadzic were charged with war crimes following an investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague in connection with the Srebrenica massacre.
General Ratko Mladic
The commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, Gen. Ratko Mladic is pictured on February 15, 1994.
Mladic and Karadzic were charged with war crimes following an investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague in connection with the Srebrenica massacre.
War crimes investigators
International war crimes investigators take measurements at a warehouse pockmarked with bullet holes in Kravice on April 12, 1996, where Muslims who were trying to escape the Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves were allegedly brought for execution by the Bosnian Serbs.
The mass execution has been declared a genocide by two international courts but never recognized as such by Serbs.
Mass graves excavated
Investigators and forensic experts from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia work on top of a cluster of bodies, many of them with their hands tied behind their backs and many of them blindfolded, at a mass grave site outside the village of Pilica, east of Tuzla on September 18, 1996.
Remains of the dead
A pathologist uncovers one of the 4,000 bags, containing the remains of Muslim men and boys massacred in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in 1995, inside a giant refrigerator in Tuzla on July 1, 2004, just ten days before the ninth anniversary of the massacre, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.
Mass grave site
Forensic experts of the International Commission for Missing Persons inspect human remains in a mass grave site on June 10, 2008 in a remote mountain area, in the village of Zeleni Jadar near the eastern-Bosnian town of Srebrenica.
Paramilitary execution video
A woman in Belgrade watches on June 2, 2005, a video on television apparently showing Serbian paramilitaries executing six Bosnian Muslims during the Srebrenica massacre.
Mass burial in Potocari
Thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and women flood into the memorial cemetery in Potocari near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica on the tenth anniversary of Europe's worst massacre since World War II on July 11, 2005.
Digging a grave
A child prays as a Bosnian Muslim woman digs a grave for a relative on July 11, 2005 shortly before the burial of 610 massacre victims at the memorial cemetery in Potocari near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica on the 10th anniversary of the massacre.
Crying for her sons
A Bosnian woman cries at the newly dug graves of her two sons during preparations for a mass burial at the Potocari memorial cemetery near Srebrenica on July 11, 2010.
Freshly dug grave
A red rose sits in a freshly dug grave in the Potocari memorial cemetery near Srebrenica on July 8, 2010.
Warcrimes tribunal
A Bosnian Muslim woman, survivor of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, cries as she watches a live broadcast of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indictment reading for Radovan Karadzic, in Sarajevo on 31 July, 2008.
Karadzic in court
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic looks up during his first court appearance since the start of his genocide trial in the courtroom of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague on November 3, 2009.
He is charged with 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1992-95 Bosnian war that claimed some 100,000 lives and caused 2.2 million people to flee their homes.
Ratko Mladic captured
Pictures of 69-year old former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic are seen on the front pages of several local daily newspapers in Belgrade on May 27, 2011. Mladic was arrested in the early hours of May 26, 2011 in a village in northern Serbia, ending a 16-year manhunt.
Ratko Mladic salutes
Ratko Mladic makes his first appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on June 3, 2011 in The Hague, Netherlands.
Victims of genocide
Hajra Catic poses under pictures of victims of the Srebrenica massacre in Tuzla on June 11, 2015.
Catic is among several thousand women who still search for the remains of their closest relatives 20 years after the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
Another grave
A worker digs graves at the memorial center for Srebrenica massacre victims in Potocari on July 5, 2015.
Mourning yet again
A woman mourns over one of 136 coffins of victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in the hall at the Potocari cemetery and memorial near Srebrenica on July 9, 2015. Once identified bodies are reburied at the memorial center.
Memorial center
The memorial center in Potocari sites below blue skies near Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina on June 20, 2015.
Tears for the dead
A woman cries near a truck carrying 136 coffins of newly identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in front of the presidential building, in Sarajevo on July 9, 2015.
Remains still found
Bosnian Ramiz Nukic searches the woods on a hill above his house, in the village of Kamenice, near Srebrenica, 150 ams (93 miles) northeast of Sarajevo looking for human remains, June 25, 2015.
There's rarely a day in which Nukic does not find the remains of at least one murdered boy or man, even 20 years after Europe's worst massacre since World War II.
Grave markers
Numbered grave markers for the 610 coffins containing the remains of victims of the Srebrenica massacre, recently identified, are stacked against a wall at the Srebrenica Memorial site in Srebrenica, Bosnia Herzegovina awaiting reburial at the memorial site, July 10, 2005.
136 victims identified
A woman cries beside a truck carrying 136 coffins of newly identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in front of the presidential building in Sarajevo, July 9, 2015.
Bosnian Muslims pray
Bosnian Muslims pray next to a truck carrying 136 coffins of newly identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in the town of Visoko, near Sarajevo on July 9, 2015.
Saturday, 11 July marks 20 years since Bosnian Serb forces overran Srebrenica -- then a UN-protected enclave -- setting the stage for several horrific days in which some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered.
March of Peace
People walk through a forest near the village of Liplje, about 150 km (93 miles) from the capital Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, July 8, 2015.
Several thousand people started a 85 km (53 mile) march from Nezuk to Srebrenica called the March of Peace, to retrace the route in reverse taken by Bosnian Muslims who fled Serb forces who slaughtered around 8,000 of their Muslim kin in 1995.
In 1995, a group of about 15,000 Bosnian Muslims walked more than 60 miles to reach the safe haven of Tuzla. Those who survived the march arrived emaciated and traumatized after their ordeal.
The participants in the memorial march consisted of survivors of the Srebrenica massacre as well people from all parts of Bosnia and countries around the world.
Memorial march
An elderly woman sitting under an umbrella watches as people take part in a memorial march near the village of Nezuk, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, July 8, 2015.
Victims still not found
Clouds pass over a landfill site next to the Drina river in Kozluk, Bosnia and Herzegovina June 24, 2015.
Over 1,000 people were killed at the site, according to the Missing Persons Institute of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even today, the forests and farmland around Srebrenica yield bones; over 1,000 victims are still missing, tossed into pits after they were killed then dug up months later and scattered in smaller graves by Bosnian Serb forces trying to conceal the crime.