25 years ago, not so very far from here, the worst massacre since the holocaust took place in the little town of Srebrenica in Bosnia. More than 8,000 men and boys were killed and over the course of the war somewhere between 20-50,000 women and girls were raped.
This week I spoke to my friend Iain Campbell, a Glasgow portrait artist, who visited Srebrenica in November with the Remembering Srebrenica charity to find out more.
The charity say:
The lesson from Srebrenica is that no society is invulnerable to prejudice and intolerance. We must all remain vigilant against these forces, and take positive action to build stronger, more resilient communities.
Our vision is a society free from hatred.
We work to achieve this goal by:
- Bringing communities together to REMEMBER Srebrenica through organising commemoration events in the UK.
- Taking people on our ‘Lesson from Srebrenica’ education visits programme to LEARN lessons from the survivors of the genocide.
- Creating Community Champions who PLEDGE to stand up to hatred and intolerance in their communities.
You can see my chat with Iain and some of the incredible paintings of the people he met here: