Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb military commander during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, has died at the age of 83. Mladić died while being held at the UN detention facility in The Hague, where he was serving a life sentence after being convicted of genocide over his role in the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
Mladić was arrested in Serbia on May 26, 2011, following years on the run, in an operation involving Serbian authorities. He was later convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Following his arrest, then-Serbian President Boris Tadić said, "Today, we closed one chapter, a chapter of our recent history," adding that the arrest would bring the region closer to reconciliation. The arrest was also considered a major step in Serbia's efforts to join the European Union.
The Bosnian Serb general commanded the forces that carried out the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were murdered, the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II. Prisoners were loaded onto buses and trucks, separated into smaller groups and executed by gunfire in warehouses and open fields. Mladić also personally gave prisoners false assurances that they would not be harmed before they were taken away to be killed.
Mladić also commanded Bosnian Serb forces during the siege of Sarajevo, in which more than 11,000 people were killed, including more than 1,500 children. His forces occupied the hills surrounding the city and subjected Bosnian civilians below to artillery bombardment and sniper fire. That grim episode returned to the headlines over the past year amid an Italian investigation into allegations that Italian nationals traveled to Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo and paid money for the opportunity to shoot and kill civilians.
