Belgrade, Serbia
The Dutch apologized Monday to Bosnian families who lost loved ones in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren apologized at the commemoration of the genocide at the Potocari cemetery in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“Holland is one of them. In spite of everything, Srebrenica crushed. . . The Netherlands is also part of this failure. For this reason, we offer you our sincerest apologies. It connected Holland forever,” Ollongren said.
She said foreign establishments have promised the innocent.
“The foreign network has failed the other people of Srebrenica. As a member of this network, the Dutch government has a political duty for the scenario in which this failure might have occurred. We cannot take away suffering. But what we can do is look history straight in the eye,” Ollongren said.
In a 2007 lawsuit through the families of victims who oppose the Dutch government, the District Court in The Hague found that the Netherlands is guilty of handing over three hundred Bosnian civilians to Serbs who had taken refuge in the Dutch infantry and the United Nations profession of Srebrenica.
Srebrenica genocide
More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed when Bosnian Serb forces attacked the eastern city of Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the presence of Dutch peacekeepers.
Serbian forces were to wrest territory from Bosnian and Croat Muslims to form a state.
The UN Security Council declared Srebrenica a “safe zone” in the spring of 1993. However, troops led by General Ratko Mladic, who was later convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, invaded the UN area.
Dutch troops failed to act when Serbian forces occupied the area, killing some 2,000 men and boys in July alone.
Some 15,000 citizens of Srebrenica fled to the surrounding mountains, but Serbian troops pursued and killed 6,000 people.
The bodies of the sick were discovered in 570 locations across the country.
In 2007, the International Court of Justice in The Hague declared that genocide had been committed in Srebrenica.
On June 8, 2021, the judges of the UN tribunal confirmed in a trial of momentary example a verdict sentencing Mladic to life imprisonment for genocide, persecution, crimes against humanity, extermination and war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.