25 years ago, on July 11th, 1995, the genocide of more than 8 thousand Bosnian Muslim citizens occurred in the Srebrenica region, in the Republika Srpska entity, belonging to Vlasenica in south-eastern Europe. The macabre event was carried out by units of the Bosnian Serbian Army, under the command of General Ratko Mladic, and a group of Serbian paramilitaries known as «The Scorpions».
The Srebrenica massacre, as this tragedy is known today, was commanded by the VRS (Army of the Republika Srpska) and was primarily seeking the Bosnian Muslim male elimination. However, it ended with the massacre of children, adolescents, and the elderly. The objective of this genocide was to carry out ethnic cleansing of the city.
Causes
The conflict started when Bosnia began its path to independence with a parliamentary declaration of sovereignty on October 15, 1991. The Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina was recognized by the European Community on April 6th, 1992, and by the United States the next day. However, this international recognition didn’t end the problem and a ruthless fight for territorial control broke out between the country’s three majority groups: the Bosnians, who practiced the Muslim religion, and the Bosnian Serbs, who were Orthodox Catholics.
The international community participated in these events and even made several attempts to establish peace in the area, but without success. They could not avoid that in eastern Bosnia, in the border area with Serbia, the bloody fight between the two groups will take place.
This event constitutes the second largest genocide in European history after World War II.
