Bosnia-Herzegovina

Investigators are working to determine cause of the blaze that broke out at facility in Tuzla in northeastern Bosnia.

A fire at a retirement home in northeastern Bosnia has killed at least 11 people and injured about 30 others, officials said.

It remained unclear what caused the blaze, which engulfed the seventh floor of the building in Tuzla, about 80km (50 miles) northeast of Sarajevo, after it broke out on Tuesday evening.

The fire, which took about an hour to bring under control, sent flames and smoke pouring out of the building into the night sky.

Bosnian media reported that higher floors in the complex were occupied by elderly people who could not move on their own or were ill.

“I had gone to bed when I heard a cracking sound. I don’t know if it was the windows in my room breaking,” resident Ruza Kajic told national broadcaster BHRT on Wednesday.

“I live on the third floor,” she said. “I looked out the window and saw burning material falling from above. I ran out into the hallway. On the upper floors, there are bedridden people.”

Admir Vojnic, who lives near the retirement home, also told the Reuters news agency that he saw “huge flames and smoke, and elderly and helpless people standing outside” the building.

Investigators were still working to determine the cause of the fire and identify those killed in the blaze, prosecutor spokesperson Admir Arnautovic told reporters.

“The identification of the bodies will take place during the day,” Arnautovic said.

Meanwhile, the retirement home’s director said he had offered his resignation.

“It’s the only human thing to do, the least I can do in this tragedy. My heart goes out to the families of the victims,” Mirsad Bakalovic told the Fena news agency.

“Last night was a truly difficult event, a tragedy not only for the city of Tuzla, but for all of Bosnia.”

Officials from across government in Bosnia and Herzegovina offered their condolences and help to the Tuzla authorities.

“We feel the pain and are always ready to help,” Savo Minic, the prime minister of the country’s autonomous Serb Republic, wrote on X.

Bosnia’s Serb entity names an interim president after separatist Milorad Dodik is barred from politics by a state court.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb-majority entity has appointed Ana Trisic Babic as interim president, marking the first formal acknowledgement that Milorad Dodik is stepping aside after being barred from politics by a state court.

The Republika Srpska parliament confirmed Babic’s appointment on Saturday, saying she would serve until the early presidential elections scheduled for November 23.

Lawmakers also annulled several separatist laws passed under Dodik that had challenged the authority of an international envoy and Bosnia’s constitutional court.

Dodik, a pro-Russian nationalist who has pushed for Republika Srpska to break away and join Serbia, had refused to vacate office despite receiving a political ban. He has continued to travel abroad and claim presidential powers while appealing the court’s ruling.

The US Department of the Treasury announced on Friday that it had removed four Dodik allies from its sanctions list, a move he publicly welcomed as he campaigns to have sanctions against himself lifted.

Dodik is currently sanctioned by the United States, United Kingdom and several European governments for actions that undermine the Dayton peace agreement that ended Bosnia’s 1992–95 war.

Separatist moves

Bosnia’s electoral authorities stripped Dodik of his presidential mandate in August following an appeals court verdict that sentenced him to one year in prison and barred him from political office for six years.

The Central Electoral Commission acted under a rule that forces the removal of any elected official sentenced to more than six months in jail.

A Sarajevo court had convicted Dodik in February for refusing to comply with decisions issued by the international envoy, Christian Schmidt, who oversees implementation of the Dayton accords.

Dodik dismissed the ruling at the time, saying he would remain in power as long as he retained the backing of the Bosnian Serb parliament, which his allies control. The Republika Srpska government called the verdict “unconstitutional and politically motivated”.

Dodik maintains strong support from regional allies, including Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. He has repeatedly threatened to separate Republika Srpska from Bosnia, raising fears among Bosniak communities and prompting previous US administrations to impose sanctions.

Bosnia remains governed by the US-brokered Dayton Accords, which ended a devastating war that killed about 100,000 people. The agreement created two largely autonomous entities – Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation – with shared national institutions, including the presidency, military, judiciary and taxation system.

Tensions have surged in recent years as Dodik openly rejects the authority of the international envoy, declaring Schmidt’s decisions invalid inside Republika Srpska.

Milorad Dodik rejects appeals court’s decision, saying he will seek help of Russia and the Trump administration.

An appeals court in Bosnia has upheld an earlier ruling sentencing Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik to one year in prison and banning him from politics for six years over his separatist actions, which set off tensions in the Balkan country.

Dodik rejected the court ruling on Friday, telling reporters that he will continue to act as the Bosnian Serb president as long as he has the support of the Bosnian Serb parliament.

“I do not accept the verdict,” he said. “I will seek help from Russia and I will write a letter to the US administration.”

A Sarajevo court in February sentenced the president of Republika Srpska – the ethnic Serb part of Bosnia – to a year in prison for failing to comply with rulings by the international envoy overseeing Bosnia’s 1995 peace accords.

It also banned him from holding office for six years.

The conviction led to uproar in Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic, triggering Bosnia’s worst political crisis since the conflict in the early 1990s, which killed about 100,000 people between 1992 and 1995.

Dodik has rejected the trial and his conviction as “political”.

In response, the parliament in Republika Srpska passed a law prohibiting the central police and judicial authorities from operating in the Serb entity. Bosnia’s constitutional court annulled those laws in May.

On Friday, the European Union said in a brief statement that the appeals court’s “verdict is binding and must be respected”.

“The EU calls on all parties to acknowledge the independence and impartiality of the court, and to respect and uphold its verdict,” the bloc said.

Dodik’s lawyer Goran Bubic said his team would appeal Friday’s ruling to the constitutional court and seek a temporary delay of the implementation of the verdict pending its decision.

Dodik has repeatedly called for the separation of the Serb-run half of Bosnia to join Serbia, which prompted the administration of former United States President Joe Biden to impose sanctions against him and his allies in 2022.

The Bosnian Serb leader was also accused of corruption and pro-Russia policies.

How do we remember war, and who gets remembered? In this episode of Talk to Al Jazeera, Step Vaessen speaks to Sabina Tanovic, a Sarajevo-born expert in memorial architecture. From the genocide in Srebrenica to the destruction in Gaza, Tanovic explores how monuments shape justice, history, and collective healing.

​​On the third and final day, Dizdarevic and most of those around him could not contain their emotions as they reached Potocari, the site of the memorial to Srebrenica victims.

In the grassy valley dotted with row upon row of white marble tombstones, are the remnants of the gray slab concrete buildings where the UN Dutch battalion had been stationed to protect Bosniaks during the war.

But in July 1995, the battalion was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces, leading to the bloodshed that ensued.

Reaching the site where thousands were brutally killed brought “overwhelming sadness” to Dizdarevic.

“It was very emotional,” he said.

But Dizdarevic was also awash with relief – not only from the physical toll of the march being over, but also from the emotional weight of having walked in the footsteps of victims who never made it to safety.

“It was very important for every one of us to finish this march,” he said.

“This remembrance should lead to a prevention of potential future genocide.”

As he and his companions set up one final camp in Potocari, before the memorial event there the next day on the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, Dizdarevic pondered what justice for its victims looks like.

“The search for justice … is a very difficult process … Even more difficult is that the Serbian society … [is] very in favour of this genocide,” he said.

“I am afraid that Serbian society – they did not undergo this catharsis [of] saying, ‘Yes, we did this and we are guilty, sorry.’ [On the] contrary, they are very proud of it … or they deny it.”

In the years since, the International Court of Justice and courts in the Balkans have sentenced almost 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials collectively to more than 700 years in prison for the genocide.

But many of the accused remain unpunished, and genocide denial is rampant, especially among political leaders in Serbia and the Serb-majority entity of Republika Srpska.

Milorad Dodik, the entity’s current leader, whose image appears on billboards flashing the three-finger salute, a symbol of Serb nationalism, has dismissed the Srebrenica genocide as a “fabricated myth”.

Still, Dizdarevic has held on to hope, a feeling renewed during the march as he watched countless young people take part, many of them born after the Bosnian war.

“What is, for me, very important, [is] that the young men and women who participate in this march understand … they should play an active role in the prevention of future genocide by creating a positive environment in their societies,” he said.

On July 11, the day after the march ended, Dizdarevic and his group joined thousands in Potocari to mark the sombre anniversary, where the remains of seven newly identified victims were laid to rest.

There, they stood in solemn silence as the coffins were lowered into freshly dug graves, soon to be marked with new marble headstones, joining the more than 6,000 others already laid to rest.

Reporting for this article was made possible by the NGO Islamic Relief. 

Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina – In a grassy valley dotted with white gravestones, thousands of people gathered to mark 30 years since the Srebrenica massacre on Friday.

Seven victims of the 1995 genocide, some of whose remains were only discovered and exhumed in the past year from mass graves uncovered in Liplje, Baljkovica, Suljici and Kamenicko Brdo, were buried during the sombre anniversary on Friday.

Limited remains of one of the victims, Hasib Omerovic, who was 34 when he was killed, were found and exhumed from a mass grave in 1998, but his family delayed his burial until now, hoping to recover more.

Zejad Avdic, 46, is the brother of another of the victims being buried. Senajid Avdic was just 19 when he was killed on July 11, 1995. His remains were discovered in October 2010 at a site in Suljici, one of the villages attacked that day by Bosnian Serb forces.

“When the news came, at first, I couldn’t – I didn’t – dare tell my mother, my father. It was too hard,” Avdic told Al Jazeera, referring to the moment he learned that some of his brother’s remains had been found.

“What was found wasn’t complete, just a few bones from the skull.”

Families like Avdic’s have waited decades for even a fragment of bone to confirm their loved one’s death. Many have buried their loved ones with only partial remains.

The Srebrenica massacre was the crescendo of Bosnia’s three-year war from 1992 to 1995, which flared up in the aftermath of Yugoslava’s dissolution, pitting Bosnian Serbs against the country’s two other main ethnic populations – Croats and Muslim Bosniaks.

On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces stormed the enclave of Srebrenica, ​​a designated United Nations-protected safe zone, overrunning the Dutch UN battalion stationed there. They separated at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from their wives, mothers and sisters, slaughtering them en masse.

Thousands of men and boys attempted to escape through the surrounding woods, but Serb forces chased them through the mountainous terrain, killing and capturing as many as they could. Women and children were expelled from the city and neighbouring villages by bus.

Thousands of people attended the commemoration for victims of the massacre on Friday, which began with a congregational Islamic prayer – men, women and children prostrating in unison among the rows of gravestones.

After the prayer, the remains of the victims, who have been identified using extensive DNA analysis, were carried in green coffins draped with the Bosnian flag.

The coffins were lowered into newly prepared graves. At each site, groups of men stepped forward to take turns covering the caskets with soil, shovelling from nearby mounds in a solemn conclusion to the proceedings.

After the remains had been buried, the victims’ families crowded around the sites, wiping away their tears as an imam recited verses over the caskets.

‘I will keep coming as long as I’m alive’

Fikrera Tuhljakovic, 66, attends the memorial here each year, but this year her cousin was among the victims being buried.

She said she is determined to ensure he is remembered and that all of the victims are never forgotten.

“I will keep coming as long as I’m alive,” Tuhljakovic told Al Jazeera.

Forensic scientists and the International Commission on Missing Persons have, in the decades since the mass killings, worked to locate the remains of those killed.

More than 6,000 victims have been buried at the memorial site in Potocari, but more than 1,000 remain missing.

In 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared the events in Srebrenica and the surrounding area a genocide. Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were both convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison.

In total, the tribunal and courts in the Balkans have sentenced almost 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials to more than 700 years in prison for the genocide.

But many accused remain unpunished. Denial of the genocide also continues – especially among political leaders in Serbia and the Serb-majority entity of Republika Srpska, which was established in the northeast of the country at the start of the war in 1992 with the stated aim of protecting the interests of the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to Emir Cica, Islamic Relief’s Bosnia country director, international institutions have not done enough to prevent events like Srebrenica from happening again, with similar atrocities happening in Gaza at the moment.

“When we see what has happened, for example, in Gaza, it is very painful for us because we understand this [experience],” Cica told Al Jazeera.

For Avdic, Gaza is indeed a painful reminder of history repeating itself.

“Today we are burying our victims of genocide, and today in Gaza, genocide is happening, too,” he said solemnly.

“I don’t know what kind of message to send; there’s no effect on those in power who could actually do something.”

Thousands of Bosnian Serbs participated in the Srebrenica genocide in July 1995, killing more than 8,000 mostly Muslim men and boys in just three days. But only 54 people have ever been convicted. So why are so many killers walking free? Soraya Lennie has the details.

Scorching heat forces closure of the iconic site amid severe weather warnings and fire risks across the country.

Greece has shut the Acropolis and halted outdoor work across the country as a fierce heatwave scorches the region, pushing temperatures to above 40C (104F) and leading to fire alerts and severe weather warnings across the Balkans.

The Greek Ministry of Culture announced that the 2,500-year-old Acropolis site would remain closed until 5pm on Tuesday “for the safety of workers and visitors, owing to high temperatures”.

The landmark, perched above capital Athens with little natural shade, typically attracts tens of thousands of tourists each day.

This is Greece’s second severe heatwave since late June. Meteorologists expect temperatures to peak at 42C (107.6F) in some parts of the country, with Athens facing highs of 38C (100.4F). Similar conditions are forecast for Wednesday.

To protect labourers exposed to the sun, Greece’s Ministry of Labour has ordered a work pause from noon to 5pm in multiple regions, including popular islands. The restriction applies to outdoor jobs such as construction and food delivery.

“Days with a heatwave make my job more difficult,” 43-year-old courier Michalis Keskinidis told the AFP news agency. “We drink a lot of water, use electrolytes, and take breaks whenever possible.”

Heatwave across the Balkans

Last year, the Acropolis recorded 4.5 million visitors – up by more than 15 percent from the previous year – and authorities have been forced to close the site during previous heatwaves as well.

Fire danger remains a key concern. Civil protection officials have issued high-risk warnings for areas including greater Athens, central Greece and the Peloponnese. Greece’s fire service is already tackling up to 50 blazes daily, said senior fire officer Constantinos Tsigkas.

Elsewhere in the Balkans, extreme weather continues to batter neighbouring countries. In Serbia, meteorologists warned of elevated fire risks after 620 wildfires were reported on Monday. Simultaneously, parts of the country face threats of hail and hurricane-strength winds.

In Croatia, storms injured two people in Vinkovci when a power line collapsed onto a home. Strong winds and rain have flooded roads, knocked down trees and caused widespread power outages in Split, where a ferry broke loose and sank a tourist boat.

Hungary and Slovakia also suffered storm damage. In Budapest, wind speeds reached 137km/h (85mph), downing power lines and trees. The Hungarian Transport Ministry said rail services might take weeks to fully resume. In Slovakia, fierce winds tore roofs from buildings and disrupted transport across the east.