Members of a local delegation who visited Bosnia-Herzegovina on a fact finding mission earlier this year are set to run the Waterside Half Marathon to raise funds and awareness for the Mothers of Srebrenica campaign.
Philip McKinney, Marie Claire McCallion, Nigel Hagon and Stephen Brown made the trip in March of this year to learn more about the country’s peace building efforts and to explore how diversity and power sharing have been managed there.
While there they saw at first hand the plight of the Mothers of Srebrenica and the horrors they experienced in 1992 when over 8,000 men and boys were killed during the Bosnian War.
“The Mothers of Srebrenica campaign was founded in 2002 to advocate for justice for the victims of the Srebrenica genocide and collect donations for their surviving family members,” explained Philip, an Alliance Party Representative in the city who has taken part in the relay element of the Waterside Half Marathon on three previous occasions.
“During our time in Bosnia-Herzegovina we learned more about how these women, who lost husbands and sons, have been left high and dry with no government or EU funding to support them and we decided we wanted to do something to raise awareness of their plight locally and raise some funds for them.
“The Waterside Half Marathon is a brilliant event that brings thousands of runners and spectators into our city so we thought it was the perfect platform to do that.
“We have around six weeks to prepare and we plan on meeting up to do the Derry City Parkrun a few times before the event itself on September 3rd.”
Philip, Marie Claire and Nigel will run the route as a relay team while Stephen will run the full 13.1 mile route.
During their visit, the delegation saw many parallels between the peace building efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Northern Ireland.
“The visit was life-changing in a positive and life-enhancing way and reinforced how important it is to challenge racism and sectarianism day and daily,” he added.
“We visited the DNA identification centre where remains are identified, it was a stark reminder of the scale of the tragedy and it was heartbreaking.
“We spent a lot of time with the mothers and wives and I didn’t experience any feeling of malice or hatred from the relatives, they just want lessons to be learned to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
The group have set up a Just Giving page entitled Remembering Srebrenica and all donations are welcome.
The 2023 edition of the Waterside Half Marathon on Sunday September 3rd at 9.30am and will feature a running, wheelchair and three person relay section.
Registration costs £25 plus a booking fee while three person team relay costs £65.
Every finisher will receive a 40th anniversary commemorative medal and t shirt.
Registrations are open now at: derrystrabane.com/whm
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