By Maja Zuvela

SARAJEVO, May 7 (Reuters) - Bosnian Muslim survivors of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica won the right on Wednesday to vote there in a move aimed at encouraging them to return to the town.

The legal change was a major, emotionally-charged compromise between the two autonomous regions created in Bosnia to end the war -- the Serb Republic, of which Srebrenica is now a part, and the Muslim-Croat federation.

The Muslims, driven out of the town by Bosnian Serb forces before the massacre, had originally asked for it to be given a special status so they would feel more secure if they returned.

"This is the minimum on which we could agree," said Sadik Ahmetovic, an Muslim MP from Srebrenica.

Bosnian Serb forces killed up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in July 1995, shooting most of them down in the woods of eastern Bosnia and bulldozing their bodies in mass graves, which are still being discovered today.

The atrocity, Europe's worst since the World War Two, made the town's name a byword for genocide.

Muslims from Srebrenica were faced with the prospect of Bosnian Serbs running the town after an October local election, since most Bosnians now have to vote were they are registered.

They demonstrated for weeks last year, petitioning Bosnia's central government and international peace envoy Miroslav Lajcak for the town to be given a special status.

"Delegates voting for the changes to the election law have demonstrated political maturity and wisdom today," Lajcak said in a statement after the vote in Bosnia's central parliament.

"They have taken into account the tragic history of Srebrenica and created a frame for fair and correct elections."

Some 5,000 people are still missing or their bodies are waiting to be identified by DNA testing in a huge forensic operation that is expected to take another decade to complete.

The United Nations war crimes tribunal has indicted Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic over Srebrenica. They are both still on the run. (Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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