SREBRENICA: Several thousand people gathered on Friday in Srebrenica for the 19th anniversary of the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim males by ethnic Serbs forces, Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II.

A total of 175 newly-identified massacre victims will be laid to rest after a commemoration ceremony held in Potocari, just outside the ill-fated Bosnian town.

The coffins filled with the victims remains and draped in green cloth were placed on a lawn in a dozen rows waiting to be put in freshly dug graves at a memorial cemetery later on Friday.

Some relatives were squatting next to the coffins, while others were caressing them with a trembling hand.

One mourner, Mustafa Delic, removed rainwater from graves which had fallen overnight.

The water filled three graves where Delic was to bury his three brothers, the youngest aged 21 when he was killed.

“Waiting was painful, but the moment has come to end this. One has to turn the page since life continues whether you want it or not,” the 50-year-old Srebrenica survivor told AFP.

“We did not have time to say goodbye... We were five brothers, three did not have luck,” the grey-haired man added.

“Here it is the end,” whispers Ramiza Hasanovic, a woman in her 60s, standing near the freshly dug grave in which the recently found remains of her husband will be buried.

Two other graves were dug just next to it, one for her brother and another for her nephew.

Two years ago in the same cemetery, Hasanovic buried her two teenage sons, Nihad and Mumin, aged 16 and 18 who were also killed during the massacre.

“Here is my house, in the middle of those graves. This is my pilgrimage site, this is all I have. I come here when I can, I talk to them, I pray for them,” whispered the woman with dark hair covered with a violet scarf.