Hungarian and Slovak embassies in Sarajevo defaced with graffiti

Unknown perpetrators spray-painted graffiti on the walls of the embassies of Hungary and Slovakia in Sarajevo overnight into Friday, MTI reports, citing the Bosnian news portal Klix.ba. The number 8372 was spray-painted on the walls of the two embassies, which is the number of those who were taken from the Srebrenica enclave and executed in July 1995, in what is considered the worst episode of mass murder in Europe since World War II.

The eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica was under UN protection during the Bosnian war. Bosnian Serb troops occupied the town on 11 July 1995 and, owing to the inaction of Dutch UN peacekeepers, took away and murdered some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the days that followed. The massacre was declared a genocide by the International Criminal Court in The Hague in its judgments against several of the accused.

The embassies' walls were likely graffitied because Slovakia abstained and Hungary voted against the UN resolution declaring 11 July as an International Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Srebrenica genocide. The UN General Assembly adopted the proposed resolution on 23 May by a vote of 84-19, with 68 abstentions. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó previously announced in mid-May that the Hungarian government would not vote in favour of the draft resolution.

Following the adoption of the UN resolution, the Association of the Mothers of Serbrenica issued a statement announcing that a monument of shame would be erected at the memorial site in Potočari, on which the names of the states that voted against the resolution would be inscribed. In addition to Hungary, countries such as Russia, North Korea, China and Nicaragua voted against the resolution.