Today marks thirty one years since the massacre at Srebrenica, part of the genocide committed against Bosnian Muslims. It remains one of the darkest chapters in modern European history, and one we must never allow ourselves to forget.
A few years ago, I travelled to Bosnia to see for myself the scale of what happened there. Standing at the memorial, hearing directly from survivors and the families of those who were murdered, changes you. It is not something you read about and move past. It stays with you.
As co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Srebrenica, I feel a duty to keep that memory alive, not as a headline but as a warning. We say we will never forget, and I believe that. But remembrance must mean more than words on a day like today.
As a society, we cannot look at atrocities happening in the world right now and stand idly by. We have seen where silence leads before. Bolton South and Walkden is a constituency built on communities of every background living side by side. That is worth protecting, and worth speaking up for.