(MENAFN- AFP) Hundreds of youth gathered Friday to mark the 1992 ethnic cleansing against non-Serbs in Prijedor, one of the deadliest episodes of the Bosnian war, in an unprecedented commemoration attended by members of the local Serb community.
"This is the first time in Bosnia that we try to show to political officials and citizens that the time has come to have a better society," said Drazana Lepir, who travelled to this northwestern town from Banja Luka, capital of Bosnia's Serb-run entity Republika Srpska.
"Our message will probably touch rather citizens than politicians. But I think that youth is the power. Seeing how many of them came today to support this initiative, I think we are on the right path," the Bosnian Serb told AFP.
In the first months of the 1992-1995 conflict, 3,227 Muslims and Croats, including 228 women and 123 children, were killed in Prijedor, according to the local association Izvor.
To pay homage to the victims, several hundred people, mainly youths, marched through the centre of Prijedor carrying 123 roses, one for every child who was killed or went missing during the massacres.
They also wore white armbands similar to those the Serbs ordered Croats and Muslims to wear as of May 31, 1992.
After Bosnian Serb forces took control in the region of Prijedor in April 1992, non Serbs were hunted and killed. Several thousand people were imprisoned in detention camps.
The first images of skeletal detainees in the camps emerged in August 1992 and attracted the world's attention to the campaign of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia.
The war in Bosnia claimed some 100,000 lives and displaced more than two million people, almost half of the pre-war population.
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