SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Several thousand people gathered in Sarajevo city centre on Sunday, waving Palestinian and Bosnian flags and demanding a halt to the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Some chanted: “Genocide, genocide,” while a large and prominent banner read “Yesterday Srebrenica, today Gaza,” referring to the 1995 massacre in the Bosnian town, Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two in which Serb forces killed an estimated 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
Other demonstrators held banners with slogans including “Stop the war” and “Free Palestine”.
Bosnia is still recovering from its 1992-95 war, which left the country divided between two entities – Republika Srpska with a majority Serb Christian Orthodox population, and the Bosniak-Croat Federation which has a majority Muslim population.
Regionwide, smaller pro-Palestinian protests took place on Sunday in Belgrade and the Montenegrin capital Podgorica.
Fears over the Israel-Hamas war mushrooming into a wider Middle East conflict rose on Sunday as Israel, in continued reprisal actions for a deadly Hamas attack two weeks ago, pummelled Gaza anew amid clashes along its border with Lebanon.
Sarajevo Mayor Benjamina Karic told protesters the city knew “how it is to live without water and food and see children being killed,” referring to the 1992-95 siege during which Serb forces killed an estimated 11,000 people in the city including 1,600 children.
(Reporting by Amel Emric; Writing by Ivana Sekularac; editing by John Stonestreet)
