The Netherlands apologized to the relatives of victims of the Srebrenica massacre for the government’s lack of response to Europe’s worst mass murder since the Holocaust.
“The international community failed to offer adequate protection to the people of Srebrenica and as part of that community, the Dutch government shares political responsibility for the situation in which that failure occurred,” said Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren at a commemoration speech in the Bosnian village of Potocari. “For this we offer our deepest apologies.”
The Srebrenica massacre — one of the deadliest crimes in Europe since the end of World War II — was perpetrated in July 1995 by Serb forces who rounded up thousands of Muslims, most of them men and boys. About 400 Dutch peacekeepers failed to prevent the atrocity in the mostly Muslim Bosnian city, which had been declared a United Nations safe area.
In 2019, the Dutch cabinet acknowledged a “partial” liability in the massacre. Ollongren said Monday that only the Bosnian Serb army should be blamed for the “genocide.”
Last month, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized to former Dutch peacekeepers sent to defend Srebrenica for the “impossible mission” they had been given.
