Thom Karremans

The government of the Netherlands on Thursday offered one-off payments of 5,000 euros each to members of the Dutchbat UN peacekeeping battalion who served in Srebrenica in July 1995 but failed to prevent the massacres of Bosniak men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces.

Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld-Schouten told the Dutch parliament that relatives of a group of Srebrenica victims who were killed in July 1995 can submit requests for compensation from the start of March next year, after a Dutch court ruled that the state has partial responsibility for several hundred deaths.

It strikes a balance between authenticity - the film largely presents court-established facts about the Srebrenica genocide - and the artistic need to send a strong message. Zbanic uses characters that are based on real people, like Ratko Mladic, or UN commanders Thomas Karremans and Robert Franken, but creates others to represent the fate of the thousands of Bosniaks who suffered.

The Mothers of Srebrenica association, representing more than 6,000 family members of Srebrenica genocide victims, has filed a complaint against the Netherlands to the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, Dutch law firm Van Diepen Van der Kroef announced on Monday.

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.

Victims’ families filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights against the Netherlands for failing to investigate whether its peacekeeping commanders in Srebrenica allowed Bosniaks to be killed.

The wife of former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic told the Hague Tribunal that he was with her in Belgrade in the days when troops allegedly under his control massacred Bosniaks from Srebrenica.

A Dutch military appeals court ruled that commanders of the UN peacekeeping mission in Srebrenica cannot be prosecuted for allowing Bosniaks to be killed by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995.

A Dutch appeals court ruled April 29 that three former UN commanders will not be prosecuted for the deaths of three Muslim men who were murdered after leaving a UN compound in Srebrenica in 1995.