SARAJEVO (AFP) - Srebrenica massacre surviours joined US actress and activist Mia Farrow in a torch-lighting ceremony Friday to pressure China into using its clout over Sudan to end the "genocide" in Darfur.
An Olympic-style relay organised by the "Dream for Darfur" campaign started in the central African nation of Chad -- which borders Sudan -- in August to urge 2008 Games host China to influence Khartoum into ending the suffering in Darfur.
In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, China -- which is by far the largest foreign investor in Sudan and absorbs almost two thirds of its oil output -- has been under mounting pressure to use its influence on Khartoum.
"We share our grief with the mothers of Darfur. We pray to God that the Holocaust and genocide never happen again," said Hatidza Mehmedovic, who lost her husband and two sons in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
In the final phase of Bosnias 1992-1995 war, Serb forces overran the UN-protected Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, summarily killing some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
The massacre, Europes worst atrocity since World War II, has been deemed by the UN war crimes tribunal and the International Court of Justice to have constituted an act of genocide.
"You understand the suffering, the pain our brothers and sisters are enduring as we speak," Farrow told the group of some 200 Sarajevans and Srebrenica survivors in reference to Darfur, the war-torn western region of Sudan.
The atrocities committed by Khartoum and its proxy militias in Darfur since a rebellion erupted there four years ago have been described by Washington as genocide, although most other states have refrained from using the term.
At least 200,000 people have died from the combined effect of war and famine there and more than two million have been displaced, according to UN estimates.
The four-month Darfur torch relay has passed through a number of countries scarred by mass killings, including Rawanda and Armenia.
Farrow has been at the forefront of the civil society Darfur awareness campaign that started picking up more than two years ago and also receives the support of Hollywood stars George Clooney and Don Cheadle.
Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984.
