AP presented Mr Dzanko with a souvenir carpet made by the weavers of Bosnian Family (BOSFAM), an AP partner in Tuzla.

Elmina Kulasic, Executive Director of the Bosniak-American Advisory Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BAACBH) was also present at the meeting. BAACBH is a strategic partner of AP.

AP staff members discussed numerous projects with the ambassador, including how to promote the work of BOSFAM, and ways of supporting Bosnia’s multicultural legacy and continued peace. AP looks forward to a lasting partnership of cooperation and support with the Bosnian-American community.

AP interns Ines Smajic and Tim Hayes (left) present a souvenir carpet to Amb. Damir Dzanko, DCM. Also pictured is BAACBH Executive Director Elmina Kulasic (right).

AP staff members and interns meet with the ambassador.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=El0YXoOoA48

More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed on July 11, 1995, when Bosnian Serbs seized the city of Srebrenica, which had been a UN-protected safe haven during the conflict.

Today’s event will feature a clip from the film, “A Cry from the Grave,” as well as remarks from BAACBH Executive Director Elmina Kulasic; Damir Dzanko, Deputy Chief of Mission at the Bosnian Embassy; Bridget Conley-Zilkic, Director of Research and Projects at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Committee on Conscience; Trisha Rines, from the Office of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson; and Nerina Cevra, International Advocacy Officer for Survivor Corps.

The event will be held from 1 to 2 p.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building. BAACBH is a partner of The Advocacy Project.

As part of the event, BAACBH will also display a memorial quilt made by the women of Bosnian Family (BOSFAM), an AP partner based in Tuzla, Bosnia. Many of BOSFAM’s weavers lost relatives in the massacre and were displaced from their homes after the war in the 1990s. Each of the quilt’s panels honors an individual victim.

The reception will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, July 9 at the Rayburn House Office Building. Mr Kujundzic and BAACBH Executive Director Elmina Kulasic will speak.

BAACBH is a strategic partner of The Advocacy Project (AP).

The grave was discovered in Mrsici village, 60 kilometers northeast of Sarajevo, according to Bosnia’s Missing Persons Commission. Exhumation was expected to continue for several days.

Srebrenica, a Muslim enclave, was designated a UN safe haven during the Balkan conflict in the 1990s. But a lightly-armed Dutch peacekeeping force capitulated to the Bosnian Serbs, who seized the town and murdered over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys over the age of 15. The women and children were bused out of Srebrenica to Muslim-controlled territory.

To date, the remains of more than 6,000 of the genocide victims have been exhumed from about 70 mass graves around Srebrenica, with more than 5,600 people identified by DNA analysis. About 2,900 massacre victims have been re-buried. Thousands of bodies and body parts have been exhumed from mass graves but not yet identified.

Each summer, thousands flock to Potocari, the scene of the 1995 massacre, to bury the remains of newly-identified victims. Two Advocacy Project partners in the Balkans, Bosnian Family (BOSFAM) and Women in Black-Serbia, participate in the commemoration each year.

BOSFAM has also produced a memorial quilt honoring victims of the Srebrenica massacre. The quilt was launched in 2007 and now comprises 85 total panels, each dedicated to an individual victim.