Serbian PM forced to flee Srebrenica memorial event

Anger boiled over at a huge commemoration of the slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica 20 years ago as people yesterday pelted Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vucic with stones, water bottles, and other objects.

An aide said Vucic was hit in the face with a rock and his glasses were broken.

Suzana Vasiljevic said she was behind Vucic when “masses broke the fences and turned against us”.

Tens of thousands came to mark the 20th anniversary of Europe’s worst massacre since the Holocaust — the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims from the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica — with foreign dignitaries urging the international community not to allow such atrocities to happen again and to label the massacre as “genocide”.

Vucic, once an ultra-nationalist, came to represent his country at the commemoration in an apparent gesture of reconciliation. However, a few people carried banners with his own wartime quote: “For every killed Serb, we will kill 100 Bosniaks.”

Serbia’s foreign minister, Ivica Dacic, said the incident was an attack on Serbia.

“By deciding to bow to the victims, Serbia’s prime minister behaved like a statesman,” said Dacic. “This is another negative consequence of politicising this subject that has brought new divisions and hatreds instead of reconciliation.”

The Muslim Bosniak mayor of Srebrenica, Camil Durakovic, said he was “deeply disappointed and I truly apologise to Prime Minister Vucic for what he experienced.”

Council of Europe secretary-general Thorbjorn Jagland condemned the attack.

The ceremony in Potocari “should have been a place for reflection, reconciliation, not violence”, said Jagland.