UN chief says world must learn lessons from Srebrenica

The United Nations' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who on Thursday travelled to Srebrenica to pay reverence to over 8,000 victims of the genocide committed by the Serb forces in the summer 1995, said that this case must be an admonition and warning to prevent any new slaughter in the world.

We must learn the lessons from Srebrenica to prevent new slaughters in the world, the U.N. chief said after arriving in the Potocari Memorial Centre where 5,600 Bosnian men and boys, out of 8,300 killed by the Serb forces when they overran the then UN safe haven in Srebrenica, have been buried so far after their exhumation from mass graves.

Ban Ki-moon extended his condolences and sympathy to the families of those victims.

Ban was accompanied by Bosnia and Herzegovina's collective presidency chairman Bakir Izetbegovic at the wreath-laying ceremony in Potocari.

On Wednesday, the World Organisation's chief Ki-moon pushed for immediate global action to end the bloodshed in Syria, recalling the UN inertia in 1995 as genocide occurred in the eastern Bosnian area of Srebrenica.

Addressing the Bosnian state parliament, Ban recalled Srebrenica and admitted that "the United Nations did not live up to its responsibility. The international community failed in preventing the genocide that unfolded. Too many men and boys died in Srebrenica - needlessly, savagely."

With his visit to Bosnia, the UN chief wrapped up his tour of countries in the area of former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY).

He began his tour on 20 July with his visit to Slovenia. The following stops of that tour were Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia. (Hina)