NEZUK, Bosnia and Herzegovina: Thousands of people began marching on Monday toward Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia to mark the anniversary of the 1995 genocide, the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.
The annual march covers a 100-kilometer (62-mile) route to Srebrenica from the village of Nezuk, where the first survivors arrived.
Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica — a UN protected enclave at the time — on July 11, 1995, and killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
The atrocity was deemed genocide by two international courts.
Fatima Ibrahimbegovic Alic told AFP her father, Ramiz, was killed trying to escape.
“I go for him, for all of them, to walk this path where they suffered,” she said.
“We need to keep doing this so we never forget.”
Carrying Bosnian, Palestinian and Turkish flags, the marchers will stop at the sites of dozens of mass graves where the remains of victims were found.
“We are here so that Srebrenica never happens again, anywhere ... that everyone knows” about the crime, said Azra Barakovac, a woman who arrived from Sarajevo to march for the first time.
Marcher Resid Dervisevic is one of the rare massacre survivors. In July 1995, he and his eight male relatives fled Srebrenica, running through the woods. His brother, an uncle and six nephews were killed during the escape.
Returning to the scene “brings back emotions, even in the days before this march,” the 64-year-old said holding back tears.
But it is easier to do it now than in 1995 “under a rain of bullets and shells — hungry, barefoot, without sleep for days,” he added.
“I walked for seven days through the forest. I survived on 250 grams of sugar.
“And when we arrived here, on this territory, people welcomed us by giving us everything they had to eat and drink.”
In late May, the United Nations General Assembly established an annual day of remembrance for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.
The move drew fierce opposition from the Serbian government and Bosnian Serb leaders, who play down the atrocity and refuse to accept it as a genocide.
“We want to dedicate this march to all the people who did not manage to save themselves and who were killed in the Srebrenica genocide,” Ela Rehic, 14, who joined the march with her mother, said.
“It will certainly be difficult to march for three days, but I want to see and experience a bit of what I learned about their flight from Srebrenica.”
Tofik Sejdic, like Rehic, was born after 1995 and said he felt very emotional.
“It’s important not to forget what happened in those years in our country, especially in Srebrenica.
“For our people, for me, Srebrenica is sacred,” the 24-year-old man said.
In late May, the United Nations General Assembly established an annual day of remembrance for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.
The move drew fierce opposition from the Serbian government and Bosnian Serb leaders, who play down the atrocity and refuse to call it a genocide.
The marchers will reach the memorial center in Potocari, where nearly 7,000 massacre victims were buried, on Wednesday.
They will attend a ceremony to mark the atrocity’s 29th anniversary the next day.
Bosnia’s war 1992-1995 between its Croats, Muslims and Serbs claimed approximately 100,000 lives.
Nearly three decades since the war ended, the Balkan nation remains deeply divided along ethnic lines.
Thousands march to mark Srebrenica genocide anniversary
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Thousands march to mark Srebrenica genocide anniversary
- Annual march covers a 100-kilometer (62-mile) route to Srebrenica from the village of Nezuk, where the first survivors arrived
- Bosnian Serb forces captured Srebrenica — a UN protected enclave at the time — on July 11, 1995, and killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys
Prince Harry retraces Diana’s footsteps by walking through a land mine field in Angola for charity
- Prince Harry walked through a land mine field near a village in Cuito Cuanavale in southern Angola
- It’s not the first time he has retraced the steps of his mother Princess Diana
CAPE TOWN: Prince Harry followed in his late mother’s footsteps on Wednesday by wearing a flak jacket and walking down a path in an active land mine field in Angola to raise awareness for a charity’s work clearing explosives from old war zones.
The Duke of Sussex is in the southern African country with the Halo Trust organization, the same group Princess Diana worked with when she went to Angola in January 1997, seven months before she was killed in a car crash in Paris.
Diana’s advocacy and the images of her walking through a minefield helped mobilize support for a land mine ban treaty that was ratified later that year.
Harry walked through a land mine field near a village in Cuito Cuanavale in southern Angola, according to Halo Trust. It’s not the first time he has retraced his mother’s steps after traveling to Angola for a similar awareness campaign in 2019.
The land mines across Angola were left behind from its 27-year civil war from 1975 to 2002. The Halo Trust says at least 60,000 people have been killed or injured by land mines since 2008. It says it has located and destroyed over 120,000 land mines and 100,000 other explosive devices in Angola since it started work in the country in 1994, but 1,000 minefields still need to be cleared.
Spanish PM highlights immigration benefits
- Mauritania has however become a key staging post for undocumented migrants
- “Today, the progress and good economic situation of Spain owes a lot to the contribution made by immigration,” Sanchez said
NOUAKCHOTT: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday highlighted the benefits brought by immigrants during a visit to Mauritania where he spoke after anti-immigrant unrest in a Spanish town.
Sanchez, stood alongside Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, told reporters that Spain and other rich countries owe a lot to migrants for their development.
Mauritania has however become a key staging post for undocumented migrants who take a dangerous sea route from West Africa to Europe, with many heading for Spain.
“Today, the progress and good economic situation of Spain owes a lot to the contribution made by immigration, to the people who have come to develop their life plans there,” Sanchez said.
The Spanish leader called for closer cooperation with countries like Mauritania “to guarantee migration that is safe, regular, organized, that mutually benefits our societies.”
He spoke as Spanish authorities seek to calm several nights of troubles in the town of Torre Pacheco where migrants have been the target of violence since an attack on a 68-year-old man last week. Spain’s far-right has seized on the unrest to call for deportations of migrants.
Sanchez has defended the role of migration and in August last year went to three West African nations, including Mauritania, seeking to develop “circular migration” that brings trained workers that Spain needs for its economy.
Thousands of would-be migrants have died in recent years seeking to make the sea trip from Mauritania and other North African states to Spain and other European Mediterranean countries.
According to the Spanish charity Caminando Fronteras, nearly 10,500 people died at sea in 2024 alone. Some 46,800 African migrants arrived in Spain’s Canary islands in 2024, according to official figures, though numbers have fallen this year.
Spanish and Mauritanian officials on Wednesday signed four accords on transport and infrastructure, welfare, cybersecurity and national parks, the Spanish government said in a statement.
UN experts demand probe into Belarus deaths in custody
- “Several individuals identified by human rights defenders as political prisoners have died in custody or shortly after being released,” the UN experts said
- The dead included people who took part in protests surrounding the 2020 presidential elections
GENEVA: United Nations experts on Wednesday demanded transparent investigations into the deaths of people detained in Belarus for voicing political dissent.
Ruled by President Alexander Lukashenko since 1994, Belarus has outlawed all genuine opposition parties and faces accusations of persecuting dissidents.
“Over the past four years, several individuals identified by human rights defenders as political prisoners have died in custody or shortly after being released,” the UN experts said in a joint statement.
They said the dead included people who took part in protests surrounding the 2020 presidential elections, which rights groups and critics said Lukashenko had rigged.
The call for investigations came from Nils Muiznieks, special rapporteur on human rights in Belarus, plus the rapporteurs on freedom of expression, protecting rights while countering terrorism, and on extrajudicial executions.
UN special rapporteurs are independent figures appointed by the Human Rights Council to report in their field of expertise. They do not speak for the United Nations itself.
The experts raised the cases of three individuals who died in custody.
“It is of the utmost importance to thoroughly investigate the alleged instances of ill-treatment and
neglect that resulted in the deaths,” they said, while highlighting the deaths of others designated as political prisoners by human rights defenders.
“There are strong reasons to believe that these individuals lost their lives in retaliation for exercising their civil and political rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
Presenting an annual report to the Human Rights Council, last month Muiznieks said the rights picture in Belarus was “dire” and getting worse.
The eastern European country still holds more than 1,000 political prisoners in its jails, according to Belarusian human rights group Viasna.
“If these figures are even close to being accurate, Belarus probably has the most political prisoners per capita in the world,” said Muiznieks.
Ethiopia arrests 82 suspected members of Daesh group
- Daesh operatives were trained in neighboring Somali Puntland region
- Ethiopia is part of AUSSOM combating the Al-Shabab group in Somalia
NAIROBI: More than 80 suspected members of Daesh have been arrested across Ethiopia, state media said, claiming they intended to carry out a “terror mission.”
The 82 individuals were trained in neighboring Somali Puntland region, according to state outlet Fana Media Corporation, which cited a statement from the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS).
Ethiopia shares a long border with Somalia, which for months has been experiencing a resurgence of attacks by the militant Al-Shabab group.
Fana said late Tuesday the suspected Daesh group members were “identified and arrested,” but did not give any further details.
The suspects “had been recruited for a terror mission,” Fana said, noting the arrests took place in several regions across the country, including capital Addis Ababa.
Somalia and Ethiopia have had tense relations for months after Addis Ababa announced an agreement with the breakaway Somaliland region last year, angering Mogadishu and raising fears of regional destabilization.
Relations between Somalia and Ethiopia have since normalized.
Ethiopia is part of the African Union Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) combating the Al-Shabab group in Somalia.
The AUSSOM mission faces funding difficulties, even as fears of the groups resurgence are stoked by attacks in the Horn of Africa nation.
At least 15 injured in Russian attack targeting energy infrastructure in Ukraine
- Russia launched 400 Shahed and decoy drones, as well as one ballistic missile, during the night
- “Russia does not change its strategy,” Zelensky said
KYIV: Russian weapons pounded four Ukrainian cities overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, injuring at least 15 people in an attack that mostly targeted energy infrastructure, officials said.
The latest bombardment in Russia’s escalating aerial campaign against civilian areas came ahead of a Sept. 2 deadline set by US President Donald Trump for the Kremlin to reach a peace deal in the three-year war, under the threat of possible severe Washington sanctions if it doesn’t.
No date has yet been publicly set for a possible third round of direct peace talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine. Two previous rounds delivered no progress apart from prisoner swaps.
Russia launched 400 Shahed and decoy drones, as well as one ballistic missile, during the night, the Ukrainian air force said. The strikes targeted northeastern Kharkiv, which is Ukraine’s second-largest city, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, Vinnytsia in the west and Odesa in the south.
“Russia does not change its strategy,” Zelensky said. “To effectively counter this terror, we need a systemic strengthening of defense: more air defense, more interceptors, and more resolve so that Russia feels our response.”
Trump on Monday pledged to deliver more weapons to Ukraine, including vital Patriot air defense systems, and threatened to slap additional sanctions on Russia. It was Trump’s toughest stance toward Russian President Vladimir Putin since he returned to the White House nearly six months ago.
But some US lawmakers and European government officials expressed misgivings that the 50-day deadline handed Putin the opportunity to capture more Ukrainian territory before any settlement to end the fighting.
Other US ultimatums to Putin in recent months have failed to persuade the Russian leader to stop his invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed in the war, many of them along the more than 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, and Russian barrages of cities have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, the United Nations says.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said Tuesday that “Putin holds a theory of victory that posits that Russia can achieve its war aims by continuing to make creeping gains on the battlefield indefinitely and outlasting Western support for Ukraine and Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.”
Trump said the US is providing additional weapons for Ukraine but European countries are paying for them. While Ukraine and European officials were relieved at the US commitment after months of hesitation, some hoped Washington might shoulder some of the cost.
“We welcome President Trump’s announcement to send more weapons to Ukraine, although we would like to see the USshare the burden,” European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Tuesday. “If we pay for these weapons, it’s our support.”
