Duchess Sophie shows respect with meaningful move after King’s task

The Duchess of Edinburgh took on an important royal engagement on behalf of King Charles in her first visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Sophie, who is a shown her long-standing commitment to humanitarian causes, delivered a powerful speech with the King’s message for the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide.

Apart from her royal duty, the Duchess made a poignant gesture to pay her respects to mark the great tragedy.

As Sophie observed the Mother’s Scarf art installation in Sarajevo’s City Hall, she brought her own scarf to add to the clothesline.

It pays tribute to the resilience and spirit of women who were impacted during the war, which tool place in July 1995.

More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were murdered in Srebrenica conflict and 25,000 women and children were forced out of their home.

Sophie met with families who are still missing loved ones 30 years later and listened to their heartbreaking stories.

During her heartfelt address at the Srebrenica Memorial Centre – old factory where thousands of people sought protection before the town fell – Sophie stressed, on the King’s behalf, that “many individuals responsible are now rightly facing justice, but this does not absolve the rest of us of our duties: both to acknowledge the international community’s failure to prevent the horror and to do all we can to ensure it never happens again.”

This was the first time a member of the Royal Family has been to Bosnia and Herzegovina since Princess Anne attended the 20th anniversary commemorations of the genocide in 2015.