Rochdale Borough Council marks Srebrenica Memorial Week with town hall event

The Rochdale Safer Communities Partnership, the Rochdale Multi-Faith Partnership and Greater Manchester Police will host a Remembering Srebrenica Memorial Week event at Rochdale Town Hall on Friday.

Local people will join faith leaders and dignitaries in remembering those lost in the 1995 Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina and pledging to work towards creating a cohesive and safer borough for all.

The event follows Rochdale Division Chief Inspector Nadeem Mir’s visit to the area where the atrocities took place.

It is one of a number of national and local events as part of Remembering Srebrenica Memorial Week, all of which lead to Srebrenica Memorial Day on 11 July, the EU-wide day of remembrance for the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.

The Rochdale event will aim to raise awareness of alternative methods of reporting hate crime.

The event will begin at 3pm and all are welcome to attend.

Rochdale Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Communities, Councillor Daalat Ali, said:

“It is wholly appropriate that we recognize these atrocities of just 19 years ago. It provides an opportunity for us to remind ourselves the important role cohesion plays in a community and what a breakdown in cohesion can lead to in severe cases.”

Dr Waqar Azmi OBE, Chairman and Founder of Remembering Srebrenica, said: “Remembering Srebrenica is indebted to its local organisers. It is heartening to see so many of those whom the charity has taken to Srebrenica as part of its Lessons from Srebrenica education initiative return to the UK with the urgency and drive to want to raise awareness of the genocide and its terrible legacy. Our champions have shown incredible initiative and put together some powerful local events. We hope that these will highlight to the British public the need to tackle hatred and intolerance in our own society.”

Remembering Srebrenica is the UK charity that organises the UK’s Srebrenica Memorial Day events. It is part-funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

For more information, visit www.srebrenica.org.uk.