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House Hansard - 317

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 24, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 317 - May/24/24
Ms. Anita Vandenbeld (Ottawa West—Nepean, Lib.)
  • May/24/24 11:12:50 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday the UN voted to establish the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica, when 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were taken by Serb forces from a UN safe zone, shot and buried in mass graves. After years of painstaking documentation, in 2004 and 2007 international courts ruled that the crimes committed in Srebrenica constitute genocide. I was working in Sarajevo 25 years ago. Every morning, I passed the mothers of Srebrenica holding photos of their lost sons and begging us for justice, like one mother who searched all of the mass graves for the red rubber boots that her little boy was wearing on that day. Those faces haunt me still. I hope that commemorating these atrocities will bring some peace and some healing.
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