Srebrenica victims brought to memorial centre

Nineteen coffins carrying the remains of victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre arrived at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial complex in Potocari on Friday.

They will be laid to rest in a mass funeral on Sunday - on the 26th anniversary of the mass killing.

Families and friends of the victims gathered to pay their respects as the coffins were lined up on the floor of the former hangar where some of these victims were killed.

Muamera Turcalo prayed at the coffin of her brother Muamer Mujic, who was only 19 years old when he was killed fleeing advancing Serb forces in July of 1995 in Srebrenica.

Only parts of Muamer's body were found in scattered mass graves around Srebrenica, and his family decided - despite his whole body not being found - to bury the remains at the funeral on Sunday.

Muamer's sister, Muamera said it was her mother's last wish to see her son laid to rest in a proper burial.

"We have been waiting for 26 years to bury him (Muamer Mujic), but I can say that we feel happy that he will finally have his grave," she said.

Bosnian-Serb general Ratko Mladic was sentenced to life imprisonment in The Hague's Yugoslav war crimes tribunal for acts of genocide in Srebrenica committed against the Muslim population of Srebrenica in early July of 1995.

According to the verdicts for various Serb officers sentenced in The Hague, over 8000 victims, Muslim men and boys, were killed in mass executions during the Bosnian war in Srebrenica, and later their bodies were dismembered and dumped in hundreds of mass graves around the town.

Families of the victims gather every year on July 11 in Srebrenica and bury bodies that were found in the mass graves over the previous year.

IMAGE: AP