On Thursday, July 11, 2019, in the evening at Manchester Cathedral, over 300 visitors and about 30 special guests, mayors of almost all municipalities, police chiefs, members of parliament and religious leaders attended a commemoration organized by “Remembering Srebrenica” to mark the 24th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica.
The commemoration programme was led by Kate Green, Member of Parliament. The event was opened by the Dean of Manchester Cathedral, Rogers Govender. Afterwards, the Chair of the North-West Committee of Remembering Srebrenica, Elinor Chohan, also had the opportunity to address the audience.
The theme of this year’s commemoration of the genocide in Srebrenica is “Bridging the divide: confronting hatred”, where the attendees were shown a short film in the continuation of the commemoration, which tried to show the importance of raising people’s awareness about opposing divisions and hatred between people of different religions, which are unfortunately still present in some cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and building bridges between them in order to create harmony and harmony between people.
Representatives of different religions, Canon Marcia Wall, Jeremy Dable and Dr. Sara Saigol, also spoke with a few words and prayers for all the victims of the genocide. This event was also attended by one of the mothers from the association “Movement of the Mother of Srebrenica”, Ramiza Gurdić, who lost her husband and 2 sons and 38 other family members. All those present listened to her presentation with sadness. After Mother Srebrenica’s presentation, Greater Manchester Police Commissioner Ian Hopkis spoke.
The eerie silence was broken by members of the National Theatre, Aida Čorbadžić and Elvir Solak, who amazed everyone present with their musical performance. Since Manchester went through hell in May 2017 due to a terrorist attack, the audience was addressed by the mother of the boy killed in that attack, Figen Murry, who then began working as a peace promoter. The audience was then addressed by the Honorable Mayor of Manchester Andy Burnham, then Martin Goldman, criminal investigator, Baroness Susan Williams, Tony Lloyd Member of Parliament, Tayiba Sulaiman and Zahid Hussain, writers from Manchester, James Plant, 18-year-old, member of the Manchester Youth Parliament, and Lord Warren J Smith.
The commemoration was attended by a large number of different ethnic cultures, where everyone paid tribute to all the men and boys brutally killed in the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995 with a minute of silence and a prayer.
