Bosnian Muslims mourn Srebrenica victims on massacre anniversary

The funeral ceremony for the 308 Muslims, who were among 8,000 killed in Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II, is to be held at a memorial site just outside the eastern town.

The victims, whose remains are to be reburied, were aged between 15 and 84. They were exhumed from mass graves after the end of Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war and identified by DNA analysis.Â

"It was so hard when they informed me that my father has been identified," said Vanesa Mehmedovic, who is to bury her father, Mevludin.

"However, since he is not with us in a way, I’m glad that his soul will finally find peace," the 26-year-old added.

Almost 220 buses ferrying around 10,000 people were converging on Srebrenica, said organizers who expect many more to arrive in other vehicles.

The commemoration, due to start at 12:15 pm (1015 GMT), is being held amid fears of possible anti-Muslim violence after a recent U.N. court ruling.

Last week, a U.N. appeals court cleared the former commander of Muslim military forces in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, of war crimes against Bosnian Serbs. The ruling sparked anger among Serbs.

Refik Dervisevic, a massacre survivor, arrived in Srebrenica late Thursday after taking part in a 100-kilometre (60-mile) "March of Peace".

Some 2,000 people participated in the symbolic march from the village of Nezuk, near the eastern town of Tuzla, to Srebrenica, along the route used by many Srebrenica Muslims attempting to flee Serb forces before being massacred.

"This is the third time that I am taking part in the march," Dervisevic told AFP.

"The first time I did not remember anything. I was just walking being haunted by thoughts."

"Last year I remembered the details from July 1995. I saw the place where I separated from my brother who was killed."

At Friday's ceremony, massacre survivors and victims relatives are to be joined by Croat and Muslim members of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency -- Zeljko Komsic and Haris Silajdzic.

Joining them are foreign diplomats led by the top international envoy to Bosnia, Miroslav Lajcak. The commemoration will not be attended by any senior Bosnian Serb officials.

So far some 2,900 Srebrenica victims have been buried at the memorial built in 2003.

Thousands of others are yet to be exhumed and identified in the area, where around 70 mass graves have been uncovered.

Near the end of Bosnia’s war, Serb forces overran the then U.N.-protected enclave summarily killing some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

The International Court of Justice and the U.N. war crimes tribunal, both based in The Hague, have ruled that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide.

The alleged masterminds of the Srebrenica massacre -- wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic -- are still at large.

"Its a shame that 13 years after what has happened in Srebrenica and after the end of the war, Karadzic and Mladic are not arrested," the Dnevni Avaz daily quoted U.S. war crimes ambassador John Williamson as saying.

"We will continue to urge the leaders in the region to do everything they can to make fugitives face justice and I’m sure that they will be arrested," he added.

Williamson is visiting Bosnia and is to attend the commemoration.

After the war, Srebrenica remained in the Serbs Republika Srpska, which along with the Muslim-Croat Federation, makes up post-war Bosnia.