Serbian PM ‘hit in face with rock’ at Srebrenica commemoration

&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpcnt">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpa">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<span class&equals;"wpa-about">Advertisements<&sol;span>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"u top&lowbar;amp">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<amp-ad width&equals;"300" height&equals;"265"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; type&equals;"pubmine"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-siteid&equals;"111265417"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-section&equals;"2">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;amp-ad>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div><p>Anger boiled over at a massive commemoration of the slaughter of 8&comma;000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica 20 years ago as people pelted Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic with stones&comma; water bottles and other objects&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>An aide said the prime minister was hit in the face with a rock and his glasses were broken&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Suzana Vasiljevic told the Associated Press that she was behind Mr Vucic when &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;masses broke the fences and turned against us”&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Tens of thousands came to mark the 20th anniversary of Europe’s worst massacre since the Holocaust – the slaughter of 8&comma;000 Muslims from the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica – with foreign dignitaries urging the international community not to allow such atrocities to happen again and to call the crime &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;genocide”&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mr Vucic&comma; once an ultra-nationalist&comma; came to represent his country at the commemoration in an apparent gesture of reconciliation&period; But a few people carried banners with his own wartime quote&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;For every killed Serb&comma; we will kill 100 Bosniaks&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mr Vucic and his guards were forced to run through a crowd that rushed them&comma; with guards trying to protect the prime minister with bags&comma; umbrellas and their raised arms&period; He returned to Serbia soon afterwards&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Serbia’s foreign minister&comma; Ivica Dacic&comma; said the incident was an attack on Serbia&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;By deciding to bow to the victims&comma; Serbia’s prime minister behaved like a statesman&comma;” Mr Dacic said in a statement&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;This is another negative consequence of politicising this subject that has brought new divisions and hatreds instead of reconciliation&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Muslim Bosniak mayor of Srebrenica&comma; Camil Durakovic&comma; said he was &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;deeply disappointed and I truly apologise to Prime Minister Vucic for what he experienced&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Council of Europe secretary-general Thorbjorn Jagland condemned the attack&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The ceremony in Potocari&comma; the Srebrenica suburb where the memorial centre is located&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;should have been a place for reflection&comma; reconciliation&comma; not violence”&comma; Mr Jagland said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This was not the first time that top Serbian officials visited Srebrenica for commemorations&period; The former pro-democratic president&comma; Boris Tadic&comma; was there on the 10th anniversary of the massacre&comma; and there were no major incidents&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Serbia and Bosnian Serbs deny the killings were genocide&comma; and claim that the death toll has been exaggerated&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Dozens of foreign dignitaries – including former US president Bill Clinton&comma; Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu&comma; Britain’s Princess Royal and Jordan’s Queen Noor – attended the ceremony mourning the 8&comma;000 Muslim men and boys killed in the eastern Bosnian town by Bosnian Serb troops&period; The crime was later defined as genocide by two international courts&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I grieve that it took us so long to unify &&num;8230&semi; to stop this violence&comma;” said Mr Clinton&comma; who was in office at the time of the massacre and whose administration led the Nato air strikes against Serb positions&period; This ended the Bosnian war and the US brokered a peace agreement&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mr Clinton said before the attack&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I want to thank the Prime Minister of Serbia for having the courage to come here today and I think it is important that we acknowledge that&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>During the 1992-95 war&comma; the United Nations declared Srebrenica a safe haven for civilians&period; But on July 11 1995&comma; Serb troops overran the Muslim enclave&period; Some 15&comma;000 men tried to flee through the woods toward government-held territory while others joined the town’s women and children in seeking refuge at the base of the Dutch UN troops&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The outnumbered Dutch troops could only watch as Serb soldiers rounded up about 2&comma;000 men for killing and later hunted down and killed another 6&comma;000 men in the woods&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The United Nations admitted its failure to protect the town’s people and today&comma; Netherlands Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;the Dutch government shares responsibility” and that the UN must strengthen United Nations missions in the future&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Nobody can undo what happened here but we mourn with you&comma;” he added&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The 1992-95 war in Bosnia&comma; pitting Christian Orthodox Serbs against Bosnian Muslims and Croatian Catholics&comma; left more than 100&comma;000 people dead and millions homeless&period; The Serbs&comma; who wanted to remain in the Serb-led Yugoslavia&comma; fought against the secession of Bosnia and Croatia from the former federation&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>So far&comma; remains of some 7&comma;000 victims have been excavated from 93 graves or collected from 314 surface locations and identified through DNA technology&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div style&equals;"padding-bottom&colon;15px&semi;" class&equals;"wordads-tag" data-slot-type&equals;"belowpost">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div id&equals;"atatags-dynamic-belowpost-691a9d5eb95ee">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<script type&equals;"text&sol;javascript">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;window&period;getAdSnippetCallback &equals; function &lpar;&rpar; &lbrace;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;if &lpar; false &equals;&equals;&equals; &lpar; window&period;isWatlV1 &quest;&quest; false &rpar; &rpar; &lbrace;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&sol;&sol; 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