A Bosnian Serb has been elected mayor of Srebrenica, triggering alarm among relatives of thousands of Muslim men and boys who were massacred there by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.
According to official results released on Monday, Mladen Grujicic will become the first ethnic Serb mayor of the eastern Bosnian town since 1999 after winning 54.4 percent of votes in local elections on October 2.
The news was greeted with outrage by relatives of those killed in Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.
In the slaughter -- deemed genocide by two international courts -- Bosnian Serb forces carried out the executions of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys, despite the enclave being under UN protection.
And outgoing Muslim mayor Camil Durakovic refused to concede defeat, crying foul and pledging to lodge a complaint.
Two decades later, Muslims and Serbs live side-by-side in Srebrenica, but by no means together -- and many Muslims feel uneasy over the prospect of a Serb mayor.
Relatives of those killed in Srebrenica said they felt "betrayed" by the election of a Serb candidate.
"We were betrayed by the international community in 1995 when they left us to the murderers, and they just betrayed us for the second time," said Hatidza Mehmedovic who lost her husband and two sons and heads a survivors' organisation.
She said Grujicic "could not run" the town "because his idols are war criminals such as Radovan Karadzic," the Serbs' political leader during Bosnia's brutal 1992-1995 civil war, who was jailed for 40 years in March by a UN tribunal for his role in the violence, including the Srebrenica genocide.
The late Serb president Slobodan Milosevic played a key role in supporting Serb rebels led by notorious military leader Ratko Mladic, who is currently on trial for genocide and war crimes, including in Srebrenica.
- 'Fear for the young' -
"I do not fear for myself. They killed me a long time ago with my sons," she told AFP.
"But I do fear for the young ones who have children and who are trying to rebuild something in Srebrenica, first of all trust."
The defeated candidates now have three days to lodge a complaint, which Durakovic pledged to do.
Speaking to reporters in Sarajevo, he said his legal team would file a complaint by Wednesday, citing "a number of irregularities."
But Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said the result was done and dusted:
"Our candidate won," he said in Belgrade, adding that Grujicic would lead a politics of "reality in Srebrenica" and would respect everyone, Beta news agency reported.
Grujicic, a 34-year old chemistry professor, has also sought to allay the fears of the Muslim community, stressing that the town hall would continue to help commemorate the events of 1995.
Speaking to AFP before the vote, he admitted that "the crime against the Muslims took place" but like most Serbs refused to recognise it as genocide, saying: "I leave (it to) competent institutions to qualify it."
Bosnia's 1992-1995 war pitted Bosnia's ethnic Serbs, Croats and Muslims against each other, claiming 100,000 lives and displacing two million people.
The conflict ended with the Dayton peace accords, which split the country into two semi-independent entities -- the Serb-run Republika Srpska and a Muslim-Croat federation.
Srebrenica has remained in the Serbs' entity.
