ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday said he was “shocked” and “appalled” when he learned of the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica 25 years ago as he urged the world community to take notice and forestall the recurrence of a similar genocide in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK).
“I remember the day very well. I remember when it happened. We were all shocked. Even when I still remember 25 years ago when it happened, I still feel the shock as how such a thing could have been allowed by the world community,” the Prime Minister said in his televised message to the nation and the world community on the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.
More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed after the Bosnian Serb Army attacked Srebrenica, a designated UN safe area, on July 10-11, 1995, despite the presence of UN peacekeepers. In addition to the killings, more than 20,000 civilians were expelled from the area.
The massacre is termed the worst episode of mass murder within Europe since World War II. International tribunals later classified the killings as genocide.
The Prime Minister said everyone with a feeling of humanity had been shocked and appalled as how such massacre could happen in the safe area of the United Nations peacekeeping troops.
He urged the world community to learn a lesson from that massacre and must never allow such things to happen again, referring to the problems in the held Kashmir where, he said, 800,000 Indian troops had besieged eight million Kashmiri people. “And we all fear that similar sort of massacre might follow there. The world community must take notice and never allow such acts to take place again,” the Prime Minister emphasised. He also conveyed his Salam (greetings) and best wishes to the people of Bosnia, from the people of Pakistan.
Separately, Minister for Foreign Affairs Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the ongoing killings in occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine were “chillingly similar” to the Srebrenica massacre. “July 2020 marks 25 years since the Srebrenica Massacre, the murder of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims and ethnic cleansing of over 20,000 people. The world has a collective responsibility to ensure history is not repeated,” the foreign minister said on his Twitter handle.
