The Hague: A court in the Netherlands has ruled that the Dutch state was liable for the deaths of over 300 victims of the Srebrenica massacre, the worst atrocity on European soil since World War II.
Families of the victims had brought a case against the Dutch government over the 1995 killings, accusing Dutch United Nations peacekeepers of failing to protect the 8,000 Muslim men and boys slaughtered by ethnic Serb troops just a few months before the end of the Bosnian war.
“The state is liable for the loss suffered by relatives of the men who were deported by the Bosnian Serbs from the Dutchbat (Dutch battalion) compound in Potocari in the afternoon of 13 July, 1995,” the court said.
“Dutchbat should have taken into account the possibility that these men would be the victim of genocide and that it can be said with sufficient certainty that, had the Dutchbat allowed them to stay at the compound, these men would have remained alive,” it ruled.
The tiny Muslim enclave was under United Nations protection until July 11, 1995, when it was overrun by Serb forces under the command of Ratko Mladic, who is on trial on genocide and war crimes charges.
Mladic’s troops brushed aside the lightly-armed Dutch peacekeepers in a “safe area” where thousands of Muslims from surrounding villages had gathered for protection. In the subsequent days, almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered and dumped in mass graves.
