Bosniak – Faith Matters https://www.faith-matters.org Working with Faith Communities Countering Extremism, Supporting Integration & Challenging Hatred. Founded by Fiyaz Mughal Tue, 27 Oct 2020 15:40:31 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://www.faith-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/favicon.png Bosniak – Faith Matters https://www.faith-matters.org 32 32 95725945 Two arrested over wartime killing of 78 civilians https://www.faith-matters.org/two-arrested-over-wartime-killing-of-78-civilians/ Tue, 27 Oct 2020 15:15:18 +0000 https://www.faith-matters.org/?p=9358

Two people have been detained in Bosnia on suspicion of taking part in the killing of at least 78 civilians during the 1992-95 war.

The two men were apprehended in Banja Luka, the main town in the Bosnian Serb-run part of the country, according to the prosecutor’s office.

They are suspected of crimes against humanity over the June 1992 killings in the north-western village of Velagici.

Bosnian Serbs slaughtered imprisoned Bosniak civilians, who are mainly Muslims, outside the school building with automatic weapons.

The victims’ bodies were later driven away in trucks and dumped in a mass grave that was exhumed in 1996.

More than 100,000 people died during the war in Bosnia, which erupted when Bosnian Serbs rebelled over the country’s independence from the former Yugoslavia and moved to carve up a mini-state of their own, expelling Bosniaks and Croats from the territory.

]]> 9358 The annual reminder of the Srebrenica massacre https://www.faith-matters.org/the-annual-reminder-of-the-srebrenica-massacre/ Mon, 08 Aug 2016 23:03:31 +0000 https://faith-matters.org/?p=5723

A grave digger at work, finishing the final resting place for one of thousands of Bosniak men and boys slaughtered by nationalist Bosnian Serb forces in 1995.

It’s known as the Srebrenica massacre.

One hundred and twenty seven new graves are being added to the more than 6,300 already in this cemetery.

The massacre was Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two.

An abandoned cultural center is one site where the massacre took place. Bullet holes are still visible in the walls.

The victims’ bodies were scattered across the country to conceal what the U.N. declared an act of genocide.

Forensic anthropologist Dragana Vucetic of the International Commission on Missing Persons studies the remains of victims, hoping to identify them.

The burial has become an annual July ritual for Muslim Bosniaks, and has become a reminder of collective suffering.

The U.N. estimates that over a thousand bodies are still missing.

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