By Talha Ozturk
BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) - Bosnia and Herzegovina has finalized arrangements to bid farewell to 11 additional victims who were identified from the Srebrenica genocide on the 29th anniversary of the atrocity.
The Bosnia and Herzegovina Missing Persons Institute said the victims will be buried on the 29th anniversary of the genocide.
It noted that identification procedures are ongoing and the number of victims whose remains will be buried may change until the beginning of July.
Every July 11, newly identified victims of Europe's worst genocide since World War II, which killed more than 8,000 victims, are buried in a memorial cemetery in Potocari in eastern Bosnia.
The UN General Assembly accepted July 11 as Srebrenica Genocide Remembrance Day, with several commemorative events scheduled to be held.
Thousands of visitors from different countries will attend the funeral service and burials. After the funeral, the number of burials in the Visoko City Cemetery will rise to 6,762.
Coffins bearing the names of the deceased will be transported Saturday from Visoko to Srebrenica.
More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed when Bosnian Serb forces attacked the UN "safe area" of Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the presence of Dutch troops tasked with acting as international peacekeepers.
Serb forces besieged Srebrenica, trying to seize territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form their own state.
The UN Security Council declared Srebrenica a "safe area" in the spring of 1993. But Serb troops, led by Gen. Ratko Mladic, who was sentenced to life for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, overran the UN zone.
Dutch troops failed to act and Serb forces occupied the area, killing 2,000 men and boys on July 11. Some 15,000 Srebrenica people fled into the surrounding mountains but Serb troops hunted them and killed 6,000 in the forests.
The bodies of victims were discovered in 570 different locations throughout the country.