Siege of Srebrenica

To understand how important this was, one has to know that the Srebrenica Memorial Centre operates in a very hostile environment in Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska, where denial of the Srebrenica genocide is widespread, alleged war criminals live freely, and there is little state support for truth-seeking and research of wartime crimes.

The Bosnian state prosecution on Thursday charged Mile Ujic, the former deputy commander of Rogatica Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, with committing crimes against humanity in the Rogatica area in 1992 and 1993.

"Novosti" notes that this idea has been present for a long time, but that it has been "reactivated" after the British government released confidential documents confirming that the Bosnian Serb attack on July 1995 was provoked by Bosniak forces and that the leaderships of Republika Srpska and Serbia did not organize or order crimes.

The Bosnian state prosecution issued a series of indictments on Tuesday charging wartime former members of the Bosnian Army, the Bosnian Serb Army, the Croatian Defence Council and Serb-led Territorial Defence and reservist police forces with a variety of crimes.

Police on Thursday morning arrested former soldier Milan Trisic, who is accused of committing a crime against humanity against Bosniaks in the Bratunac municipality in 1992, at Sarajevo airport after he was deported from the US.

The Bosnian state court announced on Friday that it has discontinued the trial of Milan Bogdanovic, whose acquittal on charges of capturing Bosniak men after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995, and enabling others to abuse and kill them, was being appealed by the prosecution, because the defendant has died.

An exhibition titled "Breaking Free", hosted by the "Forgotten Children of War" association - focusing on the stigmatized children of the 1992-5 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina - will open at the Cultural Centre in Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia, on Saturday.

The failure of the international community to protect the so-called 'safe zone' of Srebrenica in July 1995 is a black mark in the history of peacekeeping operations across the world.

Much of the controversy that remains today surrounds the debate around the role of the UN and other state actors in not preventing the killings of over 8,000 Bosniak men and boys.

The Dutch Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Netherlands was partially liable for the deaths of around 350 Bosniak men who were handed over to Bosnian Serb Army troops on July 13, 1995 by the UN's Dutch Battalion of peacekeepers, based near Srebrenica, and later killed.

Dutch United Nations peacekeepers are held responsible for evacuating the men from the UN Dutch military base near Srebrenica on July 13, 1995, despite knowing they "were in serious jeopardy of being abused and murdered" by Bosnian Serb forces, this portal says.