SREBRENICA, March 31 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Thousands of people have amassed Monday, March 31, for the funeral of the victims of one of Europe's worst massacres in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica.

Srebrenica that witnessed in 1995 one of Europe's worst atrocity since World War II turned into a graveyard for some of the victims killed there eight years ago, reported Agence France Presse (AFP).

Almost eight years have passed since Bosnian Serb forces overran the UN-designated "safe area" and killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

The 600 buried on Monday are the first to be identified from remains gathered from more than 60 mass graves.

The 600 freshly dug graves will forever change the landscape of the eastern Bosnian region and serve as a reminder of atrocities committed there in 1995.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the UN's failure to prevent the atrocity would "haunt our history forever".

"The United Nations remembers the horrific events of Srebrenica with the deepest pain," Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, said in a letter read by the top international representative in Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown, at the sombre ceremony.

Around 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys are believed to have been slain in Srebrenica after Serbs overran the enclave on July 11, 1995.

The buried made up for less than 10 percent of those killed in Srebrenica, whose bodies were dumped in mass graves across the countryside and are still being discovered.

Shaped like the petals of a flower, the cemetery has been built next to the former UN compound on the outskirts of Srebrenica.

Many of the mourners on Monday were women and children who were separated from their men folk at a site close to the cemetery.

Tight security was in place to prevent incidents, with some 1,800 Bosnian Serb police deployed under the supervision of 10 European Union police officers.

The ceremony was conducted by Bosnia's top Muslim cleric, Reis Mustafa Ceric, who called for justice, but urged the victim's families not to seek revenge.

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic have been indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal for genocide at Srebrenica.

Advances in DNA technology have made identification easier, but thousands of people still remain unaccounted for.

Forensic experts say the bodies exhumed so far may account for more than 5,000 people.

The count is complicated by the fact that many bodies were left incomplete, after being moved from one mass grave to another.

"This (funeral) brought me some relief. It is better for them here than in body bags in Tuzla," Sadik Selimovic, one of the rare men to have survived the massacre, told AFP.

Selimovic, who buried his father and one of three killed brothers on Monday, referred to a morgue in the northeastern town of Tuzla that holds body bags with thousands more bodies awaiting identification.

Selimovic's nephew was also killed in Srebrenica and has not yet been found.

"This site will serve as a reminder of genocide for the years to come," said Jasmin Odobasic, one of 10,000 Bosnian Muslims who attended the funeral in Srebrenica that remains in the Serb-run part of the country.

Wails, sobbing and sounds of prayers broke the silence during the burial ceremony at a memorial cemetery in Potocari, just outside Srebrenica.

Some women whose loved ones were finally buried fainted in tears.

"May grief become hope. May revenge become justice. May mothers' tears become prayers. That Srebrenica never happens again. To anyone, anywhere," intoned Mustafa Ceric, the head of Bosnia's Islamic community.

At the time of the massacre, Srebrenica was a UN-proclaimed "safe haven," but lightly armed Dutch UN soldiers could not protect the civilians from the Serb onslaught.

Emir Suljagic, a Bosnian journalist who lived in Srebrenica at the time of the massacre and had worked as interpreter for the UN Dutch battalion, said the funeral restored dignity to the survivors.

"If there is anything that can bring dignity to the people this is it," he said.

Most Serbs here still deny the massacre ever happened, while a report by the Bosnian Serb government last year also questioned the veracity of the account, provoking worldwide outrage.