Bosnian Serb leader threatens secession ahead of UN genocide vote

The leader of Bosnia’s Serb-controlled territory reiterated a threat to secede from the Balkan country on Wednesday, a day ahead of UN vote on whether to establish an annual memorial day for the 1995 Bosnian genocide.

The leader of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Serb-majority entity, Milorad Dodik, repeated his threat to withdraw from the Balkan country on Wednesday, a day before a UN vote on establishing an annual day to commemorate the 1995 genocide of more than 8,000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica.

Relatives of the victims, meanwhile, said that the vote would mark a historic day in ensuring that the deaths cannot be denied or forgotten.

The proposed UN resolution sponsored by Germany and Rwanda has been supported by the Bosniaks but has sparked protests and a lobbying campaign against it by the Bosnian Serb Dodik and the populist president of neighbouring Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić.