More than 40,000 people gathered in Srebrenica for a simple ceremony and burial of 505 massacre victims aged 15 to 78.
The victims were identified after being exhumed from more than 60 mass graves uncovered in the area since the end of Bosnia's 1992-95 war.
The service at a memorial cemetery in Potocari just outside Srebrenica was attended by the UN chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who expressed frustration over the continued liberty of the two men considered most responsible for the slaughter, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
Hague commemoration
At the same time, around 200 people gathered in front of the Dutch parliament in The Hague to commemorate the anniversary.
The names of 440 Srebrenica victims who were buried in the Potocari cemetery were read out while people silently circled the city's central square.
An imam offered prayers for the dead and around a hundred balloons with cards carrying the names of victims were released.
To date just six people have been convicted over the atrocities in Srebrenica and only two of those have been convicted of genocide.
Mladic, Karadzic still at large
The two people considered most responsible for the massacre - Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic – are still at large and face genocide charges over the massacre.
Mrs Del Ponte repeatedly accused Belgrade of sheltering Mladic, while Karadzic is believed to be hiding in mountainous parts of Bosnia occasionally crossing into Serbia.
In the largest joint trial ever seen at the UN war crimes court in The Hague, seven top Bosnian Serb military officials are to go on trial this week before the UN war crimes court in connection with the massacre.
So far some 2,500 victims of the Srebrenica massacre have been identified by DNA analyses, while human bones contained in some 3,500 bags are still awaiting identification.
Their bodies were initially buried in a dozen mass graves, but Bosnian Serbs moved them later to other locations to cover up the massacre.
New mass graves are still being found in the area, and the remains of Srebrenica Muslims killed while trying to escape to Tuzla are scattered around the forests in the area.
No Bosnian Serbs present
Many international and Bosnian officials attended the ceremony in Srebrenica, but not a single Bosnian Serb representative was present.
In Belgrade, the Serbian President Boris Tadic and deputy Prime Minister Ivana Dulic Markovic condemned the massacre, stressing that all those responsible must be brought to justice.
There was also no representative from the Dutch government present at The Hague commemoration.
In 2001 the Dutch government resigned over a report that found it had sent Dutch peacekeepers on a "mission impossible" to Srebrenica, but it has always stressed that responsibility for the bloodbath lies solely with the Bosnian Serbs and has refused to take the blame or to apologise, pointing out that the Dutch soldiers were on a UN mission.