25 years on: A look at Europe's only post-WWII genocide

Before the war started, Srebrenica was an industrial hub with about 7,000 people in the town itself and thousands more scattered in the wider area. Srebrenica's pre-war population was ethnically mixed, including both Bosniaks, who are mostly Muslim, and ethnic Serbs.

Bosnia on Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, the country's worst carnage during the 1992-95 war and the only crime in Europe since World War II that has been declared a genocide. The brutal execution of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb troops is being commemorated in a series of events and the reburial of some of the victims' remains at a memorial site near the town.

Normally, thousands attend the ceremonies at Potocari, but the global pandemic has made it impossible this year — U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres will speak via a video message and many other foreign guests won't come. Srebrenica is a small town in eastern Bosnia, tucked among green hills that surround the town on all sides. Before the war started, Srebrenica was an industrial hub with about 7,000 people in the town itself and thousands more scattered in the wider area.

Srebrenica's pre-war population was ethnically mixed, including both Bosniaks, who are mostly Muslim, and ethnic Serbs. The two ethnic groups lived peacefully during the era of Communist-run Yugoslavia. But this changed after the breakup of the federation. When ethnic clashes first broke out in 1992, the territory grab started and Bosnian Serb forces took hold of about two-thirds of Bosnia with the aim of creating a mini-state and uniting with neighboring Serbia.

With Bosnian Serb troops taking control over eastern Bosnia — which borders Serbia — thousands of Bosniak Muslim refugees streamed into Srebrenica. The town came under Bosnian Serb siege, prompting the UN in 1993 to declare the area a "safe haven" under protection of the world body. The UN peacekeepers were stationed in Srebrenica, and a cat and mouse game with the Serbs to get in supplies and help the population under siege continued. Reports about desperate people packed in the town without basic facilities shocked the world.

Sporadic clashes persisted throughout the war. Srebrenica had a small group of Bosniak Muslim soldiers, the so-called "defenders," whom Bosnian Serbs blame in the killings of hundreds of people and looting of Serb-populated villages in the area.