July 6, 1995: Srebrenica massacre begins

On this day in 1995, Serbian general Ratko Mladić began the systematic genocide of Muslims in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. By the end of the month, more than 8,000 Bosniaks would be murdered.

In 1992, the United Nations declared the town – in Bosnia & Herzegovina, just miles from the Serbian border – its first-ever “safe zone,” a sanctuary of sorts for Muslims during the war between former Yugoslavian states.

When Serbian forces decided to move on the town, the 400 Dutch peacekeepers were no match for the military forces. Men and boys were murdered; women and girls were raped. The official number of missing Bosniaks is 8,312, of which around 2,000 remain unidentified; one peacekeeper was also killed.

On July 24, 1995, The Hague indicted Mladić for war crimes. Slobodan Milošević, the Serbian president at the time, was captured in 2001; he died during his five-year trial. Mladić was finally tracked down in 2011. His trial is ongoing.

Here is some of the chaos unfolding near U.N. headquarters during the genocide:

For more, TheJournal.ie has a good timeline of events.

Image: The cemetery at the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial and Cemetery to Genocide Victims. Michael Büker, Wikimedia Commons