BANJA LUKA (Bosnia-Hercegovina), Nov 10: Bosnian Serb authorities on Wednesday apologized for the first time to relatives of around 8,000 Muslims killed by Serb forces in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre , Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.

"The government of Republika Srpska sympathizes with the pain of relatives of the Srebrenica victims and expresses sincere regrets and apologies over the tragedy which has happened to them," a government statement said.

The Bosnian Serb government accepted last month an internal report by a special investigative commission acknowledging that almost 8,000 Muslims were killed in the massacre, in the final stages of Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

The report marked the first time Bosnian Serb authorities have admitted the scale of the massacre in the eastern, UN-protected enclave.

Serb authorities had previously downplayed the slaughter - classed as an act of genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague - but the report's toll of up to 8,000 victims is in line with independent estimates.

Muslim men and boys were separated from the women and murdered over several days after Serb forces swept through the region. So far more than 6,000 bodies have been exhumed from mass graves near Srebrenica.

Republika Srpska is the Serb-run entity which along with the Muslim-Croat Federation makes up post-war Bosnia. After the war Srebrenica remained in Republika Srpska.-Reuters