Srebrenica survivors to sue Serbs

In the suit to be filed before Bosnia’s state court, some 10,000 massacre survivors will ask for $2.5 million for the mental anguish sustained over the loss of 8000 members of their Muslim community.

“Now that the Bosnian Serb government has issued a report acknowledging the involvement in the massacre, we can proceed with the suit,” Munira Subasic, head of the Srebrenica mothers association, said on Friday.

The survivors will also ask for compensation for the material goods lost when the Bosnian Serb forces overran the UN-protected safe zone in July 1995, in the final stages of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

Slaughter

Up to 8000 Muslim men were killed in the Srebrenica slaughter, the worst in Europe since the second world war.

The Bosnian Serb government issued the report on Srebrenica in mid-October, admitting the scale of the crime for the first time since it occurred.

On 10 November, the Serb authorities apologised to the surviving relatives of Srebrenica victims.

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his army commander Ratko Mladic, both charged by the UN court for war crimes and genocide in Srebrenica, still remain at large.

A Dutch battalion serving with the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia was tasked to protect Srebrenica Muslims, but failed to do so.

In June, Srebrenica survivors had given the Dutch authorities a proposal for an out-of-court settlement for two billion euros as compensation for failing to prevent the massacre.

“Negotiations are still ongoing, but I think we will be able to settle with the Dutch government on the issue,” Subasic said.