Srebrenica Massacre

The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, refers to the July 1995 killing, during the Bosnian War, of more than 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić. The mass murder was described by the Secretary-General of the United Nations as the worst crime on European soil since the Second World War. A paramilitary unit from Serbia known as the Scorpions, officially part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991, participated in the massacre and it is alleged that foreign volunteers including the Greek Volunteer Guard also participated.

In April 1993, the United Nations declared the besieged enclave of Srebrenica in the Drina Valley of north-eastern Bosnia a "safe area" under UN protection. However, in July 1995, the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), represented on the ground by a 400-strong contingent of Dutch peacekeepers, Dutchbat, did not prevent the town's capture by the VRS and the subsequent massacre.

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 forcible transfer of between 25,000 to 30,000 Bosniak women, children and elderly which accompanied the massacre was found to be confirming evidence of the genocidal intent of members of the VRS Main Staff who orchestrated the massacre.

The vast majority of those killed were adult men and teenage boys but the victims included boys aged under 15, men over the age of 65, women, and reportedly even several babies. The Preliminary List of People Missing or Killed in Srebrenica compiled by the Bosnian Federal Commission of Missing Persons contains 8,373 names, some 500 of them under 18, and includes several dozen women and girls. As of July 2012, 6,838 genocide victims have been identified through DNA analysis of body parts recovered from mass graves and 5,657 victims have been buried at the Memorial Centre of Potočari.

In 2005, in a message to the tenth anniversary commemoration of the genocide, the Secretary-General of the United Nations noted that, while blame lay first and foremost with those who planned and carried out the massacre and those who assisted and harboured them, great nations had failed to respond adequately, the UN itself had made serious errors of judgement and the tragedy of Srebrenica would haunt the UN's history forever.

Serbia and Montenegro was cleared of direct responsibility for or complicity in the massacre, but was found responsible for not doing enough to prevent the massacre and not prosecuting the responsible, in breach of the Genocide Convention. The Netherlands is also considered responsible for not preventing the massacre, due to presence of its UN contingent, and the government of the Netherlands acknowledged this symbolically by resigning over the issue, though no international rulings or cases concerning the issue have been considered, except in the case of individual victims suing the Netherlands. In the Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro case the International Court of Justice presented its judgment on 26 February 2007. It cleared Serbia of direct involvement in genocide, but ruled that Belgrade did breach international law by failing to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, and for failing to try or transfer the persons accused of genocide to the ICTY, in order to comply with its obligations under Articles I and VI of the Genocide Convention, in particular in respect to General Ratko Mladić. Mladić had been accused by the ICTY and was suspected of hiding in Serbia until his arrest there on 26 May 2011.