Prayers, flowers for Srebrenica dead

Thousands of pilgrims came to commemorate Srebrenica victims

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- About 2,000 distraught Bosnian Muslims offered prayers and laid flowers at a memorial to 8,000 Muslims killed in the town of Srebrenica seven years ago.

A memorial for the dead marked the seventh anniversary of the killing by Bosnian Serbs of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in what was supposed to be a United Nations "safe area." It was the worst civilian massacre in Europe since World War II.

Thursday's prayer ceremony at Potocari, which was led by the Bosnia's highest Islamic cleric Mustafa effendi Ceric, comes amid renewed tensions in the Serbian part of Bosnia.

The U.N. said tight security was in place to prevent clashes, with about 2,000 Bosnian Serb police being deployed under the supervision of 100 U.N. police officers.

The mourners came from all over Bosnia to the former silver mining town 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the capital, Sarajevo.

They travelled on 112 buses while helicopters of NATO-led peacekeepers hovered overhead. The Muslims have been unable to return home -- pawns of the failed political efforts to restore Bosnia to its prewar condition.

IN-DEPTH Srebrenica: Five days of evil   • Survivor's Story   • Gallery   • Massacre background   • Rebuilding Srebrenica   • Prayers for the dead   • Grief of the widows   • Mass grave found   • War crimes defendants   • Profile: Radko Mladic   • Profile: Radovan Karadzic

Alija Camdzic, 75, had to sit down on the grass to rest, shielding himself and his 70-year-old wife, Hava, from the sun with a black umbrella. The couple lost two sons, a pregnant daughter-in-law and a five-year-old granddaughter in the 1995 massacre.

"I have lost everything a man can lose," Camdzic told The Associated Press.

"And that's not the biggest tragedy. The biggest tragedy is that I'm still alive."

Seven years on, the international community is still reeling over the massacre.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, following an internal inquiry, apologised two years ago for the world body's failure to prevent the episode, which he said would "haunt our history forever."

In April, the Dutch government resigned en masse after an official report blamed the country's government, military officials and the U.N. for failing to prevent the atrocity.

When the Bosnian Serbs captured the Srebrenica enclave on July 11, 1995 and rounded up the Muslim men, lightly-armed Dutch peacekeepers had no orders to fight and stood by helplessly.

A U.N. war crimes court has indicted Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic for genocide for masterminding the assault. However, both men have so far evaded capture and trial.

No political speeches were planned at the ceremony, only prayers attended by survivors, Bosnian and international officials.

A symbolic white marble Islamic tombstone commemorating the massacre was also unveiled.

Only about half of the victims' bodies have been exhumed, and most of them still lie unidentified.

Denied a funeral or a grave with a name, many victims' families say they can have no sense of peace.

"We want them to be buried here so we can finally come and pray for all of them in one place and in peace," 50-year-old Sabaheta Fejzic, who lost a son in the massacre, told Reuters.