In the Srebrenica Memorial Center - Potočari, the second international scientific conference "The Consequences of the Bosniak Genocide in Srebrenica: Social, Economic, Political, Demographic and Cultural Development of Srebrenica (1995-2022)" was held yesterday.
The conference was held as part of the commemoration of the 28th anniversary of the genocide committed against Bosniaks in the "UN Safe Zone" of Srebrenica in July 1995, and the conference is organized by the University of Sarajevo, the Institute for Research on Crimes against Humanity and International Law of the University of Sarajevo and the Institute for history of the University of Sarajevo.
"As humanity, we naively believed that genocide could not happen to anyone after the Holocaust. In July 1995, genocide was committed in Srebrenica. After the genocide, Srebrenica experienced the devastation of all segments of life. Like the first, this second conference will also deal with the consequences of genocide "Building a culture of memory is the responsibility of all of us. Here we must mention those who returned and live in Srebrenica, they are heroes," Rifet Škrljelj, Rector of the University of Sarajevo, said in his address.
Director of the Memorial Center Srebrenica - Potočari, Emir Suljagić, said that it is important to make the community around the Memorial Center stronger and more numerous.
"It is very important that we deal with the consequences of the genocide. The cornerstone of any of our strategic units cannot be anything other than Srebrenica. We have to see what is in front of us, to see what we can do to make this community around the Memorial Center stronger, more numerous - said, among other things, Suljagić and added:
We have published more than 150 of our publications, one third of which is related to Srebrenica. In this sense, we formed two teams of experts who worked in the field for the past two years and prepared the conference.
"Srebrenica must have a special socio-economic status," said Rasim Muratović, director of the Institute for Research on Crimes Against Humanity.
Ćamil Duraković, vice president of the RS entity, one of the participants of today's conference, said that not enough has been done for Srebrenica.
"Unfortunately, not enough was done for Srebrenica. There was no systemic action by the state. We never received full diplomatic, international or other support to hear the voice of those who returned here. Srebrenica is one of the extremely underdeveloped municipalities in the RS entity. We politically have to to seek a compromise on the uniqueness of this area.We must all be determined that this city needs help.
We must go in that direction so that, for example, Srebrenica to introduce tax breaks, to introduce special budget lines. This is where people leave. Not only Bosniaks are leaving because of the overall situation, the Serbian population is also leaving. We will use the conclusions of this conference in our future actions," said Duraković.
Today's conference will present the results of research related to "Demographic consequences of the genocide and the state of return to Srebrenica; economic development, employment and the construction of social and communal infrastructure in the city and local communities of the municipality of Srebrenica; inter-ethnic relations and the building of trust in the coexistence of Bosniaks and of the Serbian population, as well as the return of viability in Srebrenica.
The conference was organized with the financial support of the Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Youth of Sarajevo Canton.
Source: Radiosarajevo.ba