SREBRENICA / AA

A ceremony was held to mark the 31st anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, committed by Serbian forces in 1995 in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, which resulted in the deaths of over 8,000 Bosnian civilians.

During the commemoration ceremony held Saturday in Srebrenica, Turkish Minister of Family and Social Services Mahinur Ozdemir Goktas read a message from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Denis Becirovic said in his speech that the genocide was carefully planned and executed in the bloodiest manner by Serbian forces.

Becirovic noted that the international community did not take the right decisions towards the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina at that time.

He stressed that they will continue to talk about what happened in Srebrenica forever.

British journalist Tony Birtley, who spent four years in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war, said: "I will never forget the scenes I witnessed."

** Burial of 10 new victims

On the 31st anniversary of the genocide, 10 victims whose identities were identified after their families' consent will be buried at the Potocari Memorial Cemetery.

After today's ceremony, the number of victims buried at the memorial cemetery will rise to 6,782.

The Srebrenica genocide is the worst in Europe since World War II, with Bosnian civilians from Srebrenica seeking protection from Dutch soldiers on July 11, 1995, after Serbian forces led by Ratko Mladic took over the town.

However, the Dutch forces, part of a UN contingent, handed them back to Serbian forces, who then committed genocide in which over 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were killed.

Serbian forces also committed many massacres against Muslims during the Bosnian war, which began in 1992 and ended in 1995 with the signing of the Dayton Agreement, causing the death of more than 300,000 people, according to UN figures.

The Serbs buried the Bosnian dead in mass graves, and after the war, Bosnia launched efforts to find the missing and exhume bodies from mass graves to identify them.

Every year on July 11, Bosnian authorities rebury a group of identified victims at the Potocari Memorial Cemetery.