The UN General Assembly has, by a recorded vote of 84 for, 19 against, and 68 abstentions, designated July 11 as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the Srebrenica Genocide, which took place in 1995. The resolution was proposed by Germany and Rwanda and is intended as a means to commemorate the victims and support the survivors of the genocide.
The resolution is similar to a previous resolution that designated April 7 as a day of reflection on the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
The initiative faced opposition, with Serbia proclaiming the resolution as highly politicized and asserting its potential to open a Pandora’s box. Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić questioned the need for this resolution, considering legal liability had already been dealt with. Despite the opposition, Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, welcomed the designation as an important step towards promoting remembrance and peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the region.
The Srebrenica genocide took place in July 1995, during the Bosnian War, in which more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed and up to 30,000 were displaced. Both the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) and a Serbian paramilitary unit called the Scorpions were involved in the massacre. The UN Security Council had previously declared Srebrenica a safe area in 1993. The massacre was recognized as an act of genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2007.