A stark reminder of the consequences of inaction - UK honours Srebrenica victims

The United Kingdom has marked the 31st anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, honouring the victims and warning that the atrocity remains a reminder of what follows from international inaction.

Speaking in Vienna on 16 July, the deputy ambassador James Ford told the OSCE Permanent Council that the anniversary, marked on 11 July, was an occasion to remember the victims, survivors and their families of an appalling atrocity.

"31 years ago, in Srebrenica, we witnessed an appalling atrocity unfold. More than 8,000 lives were lost in a single month that summer, and more than 20,000 people forcibly displaced from their homes. The scale and brutality of these crimes still resonates today," Ford said.

He paid tribute to survivors who, he said, had chosen not bitterness or revenge but the pursuit of justice and reconciliation, and said Britain stood alongside them.

Ford reaffirmed British support for a secure and united Bosnia and Herzegovina, noting that the Minister of State for Europe and North America had visited the country the previous week and met political leaders from across its communities, restating the UKs backing for Bosnias stability, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and for addressing the lasting legacies of the conflict.

Marking the anniversary for the fifth successive year in the shadow of Russias war against Ukraine, Ford drew a line between the two.

"Atrocities such as the Srebrenica genocide are a stark reminder of the consequences of inaction. We owe it to the victims to end conflict, create societies that are stable, inclusive and cohesive, and to fight against prejudice, hatred, fear and division," he said.

That should include a collective commitment to comprehensive security as set out in the Helsinki principles, he added, describing this as central to OSCE membership.

"We will never forget the crimes committed at Srebrenica and the wider atrocities suffered by civilians during the Bosnian War, and we remain committed to ensuring they are never repeated."

In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladić overran the UN-declared safe area of Srebrenica and systematically murdered more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, burying them in mass graves later disturbed in an attempt to conceal the killings.

Both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice have found the massacre to constitute genocide, and Mladić and the Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadžić were each convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Denial of the genocide remains widespread among Bosnian Serb and Serbian political leaders.