AP/UNB, Srebrenica: Anger boiled over Saturday at a massive commemoration of the slaughter of Bosnia Muslims at Srebrenica 20 years ago as people pelted Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic with stones, water bottles and other objects. An aide said the prime minister was hit in the face with a rock. Vucic's associate, Suzana Vasiljevic, told The Associated Press that his glasses were broken when he was struck in the face with a stone. Vasiljevic said she was behind Vucic when "masses broke the fences and turned against us."
Tens of thousands came to mark the 20th anniversary of Europe's worst massacre since the Holocaust — the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims from the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica — with foreign dignitaries urging the international community not to allow such atrocities to happen again and to call the crime "genocide."
Vucic, once an ultra-nationalist, came to represent his country at the commemoration in an apparent gesture of reconciliation. He left the ceremony after coming under attack.
Serbia's foreign minister, Ivica Dacic, said that the attack on Vucic was an attack on Serbia.
"By deciding to bow to the victims, Serbia's prime minister behaved like a statesman," Ivica Dacic said in a statement. "This is another
negative consequence of politicizing this subject that has brought new divisions and hatreds instead of reconciliation."
As Vucic entered the cemetery to lay flowers, thousands booed and whistled. Someone threw a shoe at him, others threw stones, water bottles and other objects. Vucic and his guards then were forced to run through a crowd that rushed them. Vucic's guards tried to protect him with bags, umbrellas and their raised arms.
A few people carried banners with his own wartime quote: "For every killed Serb, we will kill 100 Bosniaks."