Manchester will commemorate Srebrenica Memorial Day on Monday 6 July, Civic and Community members will support the event being held at the Manchester Cathedral at 2.30pm.
This will also be followed up by a Community event taking place on Wednesday 8 July 2015 at the British Muslim Heritage Centre.
These events sits alongside national remembrance activities taking place during the week, the main focus of which will be a special memorial service at Westminster Abbey, in London, on 6 July. There will also be high-profile events in Edinburgh and Cardiff.
Among those attending this event will be the Lord-Lieutenant Warren Smith, Lord Mayor of Manchester Councillor Paul Murphy OBE , Tony Lloyd Interim Mayor of Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Dean Rogers Govender, Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts, Chief Inspector for Cohesion Umer Khan, Liz McInnes MP and Trafford Divisional Superintendent James Liggett, Saima Alvi of the British Muslim Heritage Centre and Yousef Dar of the Community Safety Forum.
On 11 July 1995 General Ratko Mladić and his Bosnian Serb forces marched into the town of Srebrenica and systematically murdered 8372 Bosnian Muslim men and boys.
In 1993, Srebrenica had been declared a UN Safe Area, under the watch of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). In July 1995, Serbian paramilitary units overran and captured the town, despite its designation as an area ‘free from any armed attack or any other hostile act.
Manchester’s day of remembrance honours some 8,372 victims, as well as the survivors of the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica – a town in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was the worst such atrocity on European soil since the Second World War. Whilst Srebrenica was the centre piece of Serbian ethnic cleansing, this systematic policy was followed in vast areas of Bosnia to try and eradicate Muslims from the map of what is now called Bosnia.
The event supported by Greater Manchester High Sheriff’s Police Trust and Manchester City Council is designed both as an act of remembrance and a powerful reminder of the threat that intolerance, racism and hatred pose to our own society.
Dudia Zilic one of the victims of the Bosnia War will say, ‘’When we remember the accounts of women and men who were raped and abused or the thousands of Bosnian Muslims who were rounded up and hunted down and killed in towns and villages like Srebrenica during the Bosnia war over 20 years ago, we must never allow this to happen again. We must all challenge hate from which ever quarter it comes from, stand up to aggression however powerful they may be and support the victims of war if we are to live together in peace and harmony’’.
