Jackie Doyle-Price, MP for Thurrock, reflects on her visit to Srebrenica.
“I was a student during the Bosnian war. I remember seeing the pictures of the camps with mal- nourished prisoners. I remember seeing film showing young men being executed. It seemed like another world. Then I realised, this was happening in Europe. I could leave my house in the morning and be there in half a day. I could not believe that Europe was allowing this to happen.
You cannot fail to be moved by visiting Srebrenica. To see the film of Mladić coldly talking about killing the Muslims; hearing the stories of the women left behind and the last time they saw their husband or their son; seeing the personal possessions recovered from some of the dead which illustrate how they lived and died; and standing in the warehouse where they thought they were taking shelter with the UN but was where they died; the memorial which shows the list of those executed. It brings to life the cold reality of the hell that war is.
I want children to visit Srebrenica, to show them that genocide and atrocity in Europe is not something, which has been consigned to history. It happened just 20 years ago. To show how com- munities went from living happily together, to committing appalling acts of violence against each other because their political leaders manipulated their ethnic differences and encouraged them to hate. It can happen anywhere at any time. Bosnia tells us we should never use our ethnicity or our religion as a reason for hate.”
