In much of the world, the sites of genocide have been preserved as solemn reminders: Dachau, Auschwitz, Treblinka — places transformed into warnings for future generations. Now imagine if those sites were paved over. If their names were changed. If the crimes committed there were denied by elected officials. If the perpetrators were celebrated as national heroes. If children were taught a fictional version of history in which none of it ever happened.

This is not a thought experiment. It is what is happening in Bosnia — today.

The genocide in Srebrenica, which culminated in July 1995, was not an isolated event but the final chapter in a broader campaign of systematic persecution and violence against Bosnia’s Muslim population. On April 6, 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence, with Bosniaks — Bosnian Muslims — forming a majority. In response, Bosnian Serb nationalists, supported by the Serbian government and the Yugoslav National Army, launched a brutal war aimed at territorial conquest, and forced displacement by any means necessary.

Despite being declared a United Nations “safe area” in 1993, Srebrenica, a town in eastern Bosnia, fell in July 1995 to Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladić. With no resistance from UN peacekeepers, Bosnian Serb troops began systematically separating men and boys from women and girls. The men and boys were taken to execution sites, tortured and murdered en masse. Their bodies were buried in 94 mass graves, which were later disturbed, moved to secondary and tertiary graves in an attempt to obscure the evidence and prevent identification. 30 years later, many of those graves have not yet been found.

But Srebrenica was not the only manifestation of genocide. Between 1992 and 1995, atrocities occurred across Bosnia: in Prijedor, Foča, Višegrad, and dozens of other towns and cities. Muslim women were subjected to systematic rape, forced impregnation, and murder. Muslim men were executed, tortured, or starved in concentration camps. These crimes were part of a coordinated strategy: to reshape Bosnia and Herzegovina and incorporate its land into Greater Serbia by expelling, terrorizing, and erasing its Muslim population. The campaign included mass imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, human trafficking, cultural destruction, forced displacement, and planned executions of civilians — men, women, children, and the elderly alike.

According to the International Commission on Missing Persons, of the 8,373 murdered in Srebrenica, 7,017 have been identified through DNA. More than 1,000 remain missing. The war in Bosnia displaced over two million people and killed more than 100,000 — over 80% of them Muslim. Between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped. More than 30,000 people were held in concentration camps.

Thanks to DNA evidence and the testimony of courageous survivors — many of whom continue to face discrimination and threats — the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice both formally recognized the Srebrenica massacre as genocide. Twenty individuals were tried at the ICTY. Fifty-seven appeared before Bosnia’s State Court, resulting in four life sentences and dozens more convictions.

International recognition followed. On May 23, 2024, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 78/282, declaring July 11 the International Day of Remembrance of the Srebrenica Genocide. Dozens of countries and cities now mark this date annually.

The story inside Bosnia however has been the opposite.

The 30 years since the genocide have been marred by decades of denial and attempts at erasure. In schools inside Republika Srpska, children are taught the genocide never occurred, and convicted war criminals are hailed as heroes, while the sites of massacres are slowly being erased with the support of the government of Republika Srpska. These events not only retraumatize the victims and their families, they set the stage for an inevitable future attempt at genocide.  

As we approach the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, the lack of meaningful accountability and the normalization of denial make this moment urgent. The machinery of genocide denial is now fully operational, with support not just from local governments but from elements of the international community that have failed to enforce truth and justice.

This is why The Acts of Reburial must be made — now.