More than 30 years after the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995), Srebrenica remains emblematic of its brutality. And no one is more closely linked to the genocide that took place in the small town in eastern Bosnia than Ratko Mladic, the former commander-in-chief of the Bosnian Serb army. Although the United Nations had declared Srebrenica a "safe area," Bosnian Serb forces attacked the town.
Within just a few days in July 1995, they expelled women and children, then killed more than 8,300 unarmed Muslim boys and men in the nearby village of Potocari — on Mladic's direct orders, according to the verdict handed down by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague 22 years later. At the time, Srebrenica was the largest massacre in Europe since World War II. The ICTY classified it as genocide.
Mladic was also held responsible for other war crimes beyond the Srebrenica genocide. Under his command, the years-long siege of Sarajevo began at the start of the war. The city was shelled for more than 40 months, killing around 11,000 people, including more than 1,600 children.
Mladic always claimed that he targeted only military objectives. But numerous reports and intercepted radio communications indicate that civilian facilities and residential areas were also deliberately attacked. Around 100,000 people were killed during the four-year war in Bosnia, while some 2.2 million were driven from their homes in cities and villages across the country, half of its total population at the time.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video In 2017, Mladic was sentenced to life in prison by the tribunal in The Hague. International media dubbed him "the Butcher of the Balkans." He was found responsible for some of the most serious war crimes and the genocide committed during the Bosnian War. Mladic consistently denied any responsibility.
He saw himself as an avenger of the Serbs for centuries of Ottoman rule in the Balkans, and viewed Bosnia's Muslims, who today call themselves Bosniaks, as direct descendants of the Turks. In front of his soldiers, he referred to them simply as "the Turks" and showed no empathy. "Borders are always drawn with blood, and states are marked with graves," he is quoted as saying.
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