SARAJEVO, July 11 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Thousands of Bosnian Muslims are to attend a funeral service in Srebrenica Friday, July 11, to finally lay to rest some 300 victims of a 1995 massacre in the town, marking the anniversary of the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

The anniversary comes as eight years after the Srebrenica massacre passed and the U.N. court has sentenced only two people over Europe's worst single atrocity since World War II, while those thought ultimately responsible are still at large.

Up to 20,000 people, according to the organizers, are to attend the commemoration and joint funeral for 282 victims - a small group of the many thousands found in numerous mass graves dug up after Bosnia's bloody 1992-1995 ethnic war.

"The grave in Srebrenica will be the only thing I have left from my son," Husein Pitarevic told Agence France-Presse (AFP) while preparing to leave the Bosnian capital Sarajevo for Srebrenica, where his son Adnan, killed at 14, will be interred.

Pitarevic, who is still living as a displaced person in Sarajevo, said he would like to follow his dead son's body and also return to Srebrenica despite fearing a return to the Serb-controlled part of the country in the east.

Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Dragan Mikerevic has also announced his intention to participate. He will be the first premier of Bosnia's Serb-run entity, which makes up the state along with the Muslim-Croat Federation, to attend the commemoration.

Some 7,000 Muslim men and boys are believed to have been summarily executed in just a few days in July 1995 when Serb forces overran the eastern enclave, then under the protection of Dutch U.N. soldiers.

The victims, who will be buried at a new memorial cemetery located at the site of the slaughter just outside town limits, were aged between 14 and 75 and were found in some of the more than 60 mass graves which have been excavated.

The first 600 bodies, identified by DNA analysis, were buried in the new cemetery earlier this year. But more than 5,000 body bags filled with human bones are still awaiting identification and have been stored in morgues in the northern town of Tuzla, and Visoko near Sarajevo.

Only a small fraction of the town's 27,000-strong pre-war Muslim population have returned to their homes in Srebenica, where they are often the target of verbal harassment by Serbs.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has sentenced Radoslav Krstic, the Bosnian Serb general who led the attack on Srebrenica, to 46 years in prison.

The massacre at Srebrenica is one of the key charges laid against fugitive Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his army commander Ratko Mladic, while former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is also on trial in The Hague for genocide and war crimes relating to the incident.

The United Nations, which had deployed troops in Bosnia during the war, has admitted partial responsibility for the Srebrenica tragedy, saying it had played too passive a role in the conflict.

Last year, the entire Dutch government was forced to resign after a report laid part of the blame for the atrocity on the Dutch authorities.

Under a peace accord that ended the bloodshed in Bosnia, the country was split into two highly-autonomous entities -- the Serbs' Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.

The eighth anniversary come as the U.N. court has sentenced only two people over the massacring of 7,000 Muslims, while those thought ultimately responsible are still at large.

Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic are the tribunal's most wanted fugitives, charged with genocide for the 1995 massacre and the campaign of ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs during the Bosnian war.

Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic is also on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the bloody wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo of the 1990s, including the Srebrenica attack.

Meanwhile, a senior Serbian police official said Thursday, July 10, that Mladic disappeared from Serbia a year ago after losing the support of his protectors in the Yugoslav army.

"He had been under direct army protection for a long time," said the official, asking to remain anonymous, on the eve of the anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre for which Mladic has been indicted by an international war crimes court.

"He stayed in army buildings and appeared in public at least once a week with a strong army escort," the official told AFP.

"Police did not want to try to arrest him as long as he had strong army protection. We did not want clash with the army," the official said.

"But when the army denied him further protection about a year ago, Mladic left Serbia," the source said.

In July 1995, Bosnian Serb troops led by Mladic overran Srebrenica, a U.N. declared safe haven in eastern Bosnia protected by Dutch peacekeepers. After they captured the town the Serbs are believed to have summarily executed more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys in the bloodiest episode of the 1992-95 war.

So far the U.N. war crimes court in The Hague has only sentenced two people for the slaughter out of 14 indictees: the general who led the attack, Radislav Krstic, and a former soldier in the Bosnian Serb forces, Drazen Erdemovic.

Krstic was convicted in August 2001 of genocide and sentenced to 46 years in jail in a verdict that marked the first time the International Court for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) recognized that genocide had taken place in Bosnia.

Both the prosecution and the defense have appealed the ruling, and the case is expected to be heard towards the end of the year.

Despite the slow progress in securing convictions, prosecutors and Srebrenica survivors say guilty pleas made by two suspects convicted in May represent a major step forward.

Two Bosnian Serb officers, Momir Nikolic and Dragan Obrenovic, have admitted taking part in the "widespread and systematic" attack on the civilian population, saying it was "because the victims were Muslims".

They are both awaiting legal punishment.

"It is the first time the actors in the tragedy are saying exactly what happened and their testimony confirmed the careful planning of massacres," tribunal spokesman Christian Chartier told AFP.

The confessions are important not only to establish the truth but also to combat revisionism and denial in the region, survivors say.

"Because of these people who pleaded guilty no one will ever be able to say again that this did not happen, that is what matters to me," said Bosnian journalist and Srebrenica survivor Emir Suljagic.

"The crime base has become irrefutable," said Jean Daniel Ruch, political advisor to chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, adding that the testimony of the two who confessed would be key in ongoing and future trials over Srebrenica.

Two Bosnian Serb officers have been on trial at The Hague since May accused of organizing and carrying out the killings and concealing the evidence. Vidoje Blagojevic is charged with genocide and Dragan Jokic with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Both deny the charges.

Aside from Karadzic and Mladic, five former Bosnian Serb officers indicted over Srebrenica are still on the run. Ljubisa Beara, Ljubomir Borovcanin, Drago Nikolic, Vinko Pandurevic and Vujadin Popovic all face charges of genocide.

Srebrenica is also an important part of the mammoth trial of Milosevic, who faces a charge of genocide over the Bosnian Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing in addition to over 60 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.