Bombs found at Srebrenica memorial

Bosnian Serb police today said several bombs had been found at Srebrenica’s memorial centre ahead of the 10th anniversary of the wartime massacre.

Radovan Pejic, spokesman for the Bosnian Serb police, said police were informed of the explosives by the European Union peace force in Bosnia.

Police sealed off the location today and sent bomb disposal experts and bomb-sniffing dogs to the memorial centre in the Srebrenica suburb of Potocari.

“We found a significant amount of explosives at two separate locations and we have sealed off the wider region of Potocari,” Pejic said.

“We have identified a few suspects and are searching for them now,” he added.

Police officials at the site said 30 kilograms of plastic explosive was found.

Police set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the memorial, which is alongside a road.

Toward the end of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, as many as 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed when Bosnian Serb troops overran the eastern Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995. It was Europe’s worst mass killing since the Second World War.

The UN tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, has called the Srebrenica massacre an act of genocide.

The 10th anniversary is scheduled for July 11 and organisers expect up to 50,000 people to attend, including regional leaders and international dignitaries.

Also, some 570 victims of the massacre, between the ages of 14 and 75, will be buried at the memorial cemetery during the ceremony. Their bodies were exhumed from more than 60 mass graves that have been found around the eastern Bosnian town.

More than 1,300 Srebrenica victims are already buried in the Potocari memorial cemetery. The masterminds of the massacre, Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic are still at large. Both have been indicted by the war crimes tribunal for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Srebrenica has again been the focus of public attention since early June, when footage of Serbian paramilitary forces killing six Srebrenica men was broadcast at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Pejic said that some 1,500 police officers will be involved in securing the July 11 ceremony.