Srebrenica massacre
The Srebrenica massacre (Serbo-Croatian: Masakr u Srebrenici / Масакр у Сребреници), also known as the Srebrenica genocide (Serbo-Croatian: Genocid u Srebrenici / Геноцид у Сребреници), was the July 1995 genocidal killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica, during the Bosnian War.
The killings were perpetrated by units of the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of Ratko Mladić.
The Scorpions, a paramilitary unit from Serbia, who had been part of the Serbian
Interior Ministry until 1991, also participated in the massacre. Prior to
the massacre, United Nations (UN) had declared the besieged enclave of Srebrenica, in
eastern Bosnia, a "safe area" under UN protection.
However, the UN failed both to demilitarize the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina (ARBiH) within Srebrenica and to force withdrawal
of the VRS surrounding Srebrenica. UNPROFOR's
370 lightly armed Dutchbat soldiers were unable to prevent the town’s
capture and the subsequent massacre. A list of missing or killed people
during the massacre compiled by the Bosnian Federal Commission of Missing
Persons contains 8,372 names. As of July 2012, 6,838 genocide victims
have been identified through DNA analysis of body parts recovered from mass
graves; as of July 2021, 6,671 bodies have been buried at the Memorial Centre of Potočari, while another
236 have been buried elsewhere.
Some Serbs have claimed that the massacre was retaliation for civilian
casualties inflicted on Serbs by Bosniak soldiers from Srebrenica under command
of Naser Orić. These 'revenge' claims have been rejected and
condemned by the ICTY and UN as bad faith attempts to justify the genocide.
In 2004, in a unanimous ruling on the case of Prosecutor
v. Krstić, the Appeals Chamber of the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), located
in The Hague,
ruled that the massacre of the enclave's male inhabitants constituted genocide,
a crime under international law. The ruling was also upheld by the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
in 2007. The forcible transfer and abuse of between 25,000 and 30,000
Bosniak Muslim women, children and elderly which accompanied the massacre was
found to constitute genocide, when accompanied with the killings and separation
of the men.
In 2013, 2014, and again in 2019, the Dutch state was found
liable in the Dutch supreme court and in the Hague district court of failing to
do enough to prevent more than 300 of the deaths.
In April 2013, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić apologised for "the
crime" of Srebrenica, but refused to call it genocide.
On 8 July 2015, Russia vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have condemned the Srebrenica
massacre as a genocide. The resolution was intended to mark the 20th anniversary of
the killing of 8,000 Muslim men and boys. China, Nigeria, Angola and Venezuela abstained and the remaining 10 members of the council
voted in favour. The veto was praised by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić who said that Russia had "prevented an
attempt of smearing the entire Serbian nation as genocidal" and proven
itself as a true and honest friend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre#2013:_Supreme_Court_of_the_Netherlands_judgement
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