Bosnia: Genocide in Europe, Ignored by Europe
Between 1992 and 1995, Bosnian Muslim civilians were subjected to systematic massacre, rape, and ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces while European governments watched and United Nations peacekeepers stood aside. Srebrenica was the worst massacre on European soil since the Second World War.
The Context
Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. The Bosnian Serb army, backed by Serbia and supplied with Yugoslav military equipment, launched a campaign to create ethnically pure Serbian territory by eliminating or expelling the Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) population.
The campaign was systematic: the siege of cities, the massacre of civilians, the destruction of mosques, and the establishment of concentration camps where Bosniak men and boys were detained, tortured, and killed.
Srebrenica
In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladic entered Srebrenica, a United Nations-designated "safe area" protected by Dutch UN peacekeepers. Over eight days, approximately 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were separated from the women and children, taken to fields and execution sites, shot, and buried in mass graves.
The Dutch peacekeepers handed over the men who had sought protection within the UN compound.
The International Court of Justice ruled in 2007 that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide under international law. Ratko Mladic was convicted of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2017.
The Broader Campaign
Srebrenica was the most concentrated single event. The broader campaign included:
- The siege of Sarajevo: the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare, lasting 44 months, during which snipers deliberately targeted civilians
- The Omarska and Manjaca concentration camps, where Bosniak prisoners were subjected to systematic torture, starvation, and killing
- The systematic use of rape as a weapon of war, an estimated 20,000–50,000 women were raped during the conflict
- The destruction of mosques across Bosnia: over 600 mosques were destroyed or damaged, including historic Ottoman structures
The International Failure
European governments were aware of the atrocities. They chose not to intervene. The United States eventually launched NATO airstrikes in 1995 that ended the Bosnian Serb military campaign: after three years and approximately 100,000 deaths.
The lesson drawn by Muslim observers was clear: the international community's commitment to protecting Muslim civilian populations is conditional and slow. The same institutions that had been established after the Second World War specifically to prevent genocide failed to prevent genocide when the victims were Muslim.
The Memory
Bosnia has become one of the defining events in the consciousness of Muslim communities worldwide, the moment when it became undeniable that Muslim lives are valued differently by the international system. The image of Srebrenica (UN peacekeepers, a designated safe area, 8,000 dead) is the image of that differential value made concrete.
Scholar References
- David Rohde, Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica
- Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: on the international failure to prevent genocide
- International Court of Justice ruling on Bosnia v Serbia (2007)
- Human Rights Watch documentation of Bosnian war crimes