VOA慢速英语：斯雷布雷尼察纪念日

This Saturday, Bosnia will mark the 20th anniversary of the worst mass killingin Europe since World War Two. It is known as the massacre of Srebrenica.During an 11-day period in July 1995, around 8,000 Muslim men and boyswere murdered during the Bosnian war.

A woman cries beside a truck carrying 136 coffins of newly identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in front of the presidential building in Sarajevo July 9, 2015. The bodies will be on July 11, the anniversary of the massacre. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)

Today families of the victims still feel the pain. But some experts say theevents of 20 years ago should make nations work harder at preventing futureconflicts.

For those who lost husbands and sons 20 years ago during the Srebrenicamassacre, the wounds are still fresh.

Not long ago, medical examiners identified the remains of 136 victims. Duringceremonies on Saturday, those remains will finally be laid to rest.

One woman lost her husband and both sons at Srebrenica. “We have beensentenced without a trial,” she says. “Our children were sentenced to deathand expulsion, and we survivors were sentenced to stay living in hell.”

During the Bosnian war, the United Nations declared the town of Srenbrenicaa “safe area” and under UN protection. Twenty years ago, Serbian GeneralRatko Mladic and his troops raided the area while Dutch peacekeeping forceswere on guard. Thousands of Bosnian men and boys were killed.

Stephen Rapp is the United States’ Ambassador-at-Large for War CrimesIssues. He says the international community must take greater steps tointervene to help reduce ethnic tensions in Bosnia and other places. He spokerecently at a conference in Washington.

“I think part of what we need to work for is for greater integration within theregion, both within Europe and internally, recognizing the common interests ofpeople in Bosnia for a prosperous future and a future where people can livetogether whatever their ethnicity, whatever religion they follow.”

Tanya Domi is a professor at Columbia University in New York. She says alasting result of the war in Bosnia is its troubled economy.

The World Bank reports that formal unemployment is 40 percent, she says.With the addition of Bosnian young people, the number is almost 60 percent. She says conditions like these are not good for Bosnia’s citizens and peoplehave started leaving the country.

The International Criminal Court at The Hague approved orders for the arrestof Ratko Mladic on war crimes charges. The court also announced chargesagainst former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and former SerbianPresident Slobodan Milosevic.

Mr. Milosevic died in prison in 2006. Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic arestill facing war crimes charges. The court found three others, including twoBosnian Serbs, guilty of genocide.

Ambassador Rapp says that even if justice is slow in coming for the crimes ofSrebrenica, it will come. In his words, “The day will come when persons whotarget the innocent, who attempt to destroy whole groups, on whatevermotivation, that those people will face justice. And I think that out of Srebrenicathe world has gained powerful lessons that all of us need to implement everyday.”

Even in the face of those lessons, there are still people who still deny the actof mass killing. On Wednesday, Russia vetoed a proposed UN resolution in the Security Council. The resolution would have condemned the massacre inSrebrenica as genocide.

I’m Jim Tedder.

VOA’s Robert Raffaele reported on this story. Triwik Kurniasari adapted it forLearning English. George Grow was the editor.

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Words in This Story

massacre– n. the killing of many people

expulsion – n. the act of forcing someone to leave a place

integration – n. bringing different kinds of groups together

prosperous – adj. successful in economy; profitable

implement – v. to make something happen; to carry out