July 17, 2014

Netherlands liable for 300 Srebrenica deaths

editor:	Murat Suner

A civil court in the Netherlands has ruled that the country shares the blame for the deaths of 300 Muslim men killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. However, the court said there was no liability for most of the deaths reports Deutsche Welle.

"The ruling from a civil court in The Hague on Wednesday states that the Netherlands is responsible for the deaths of 300 men killed in the Srebrenica massacre that began on July 13, 1995. A group called Mothers of Srebrenica, representing relatives of the victims of the massacre during the Bosnian War, brought the case to the court.

The decision said the Dutch state was liable for the deaths of 300 men who were killed at the hands of Serbian forces led by general Ratko Mladic. These 300 men had sought refuge at a compound controlled by the Dutch UN force in the nearby village of Potocari. When Serbian troops overran Srebrenica, the men were ordered to leave Potocari."

"Dutch forces 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 Dutch allowed them to stay at the compound, these men would have remained alive," the court said Deutsche Welle reports.

"Srebrenica had been designated as a safe zone for Bosnian Muslims by the United Nations, but Serbian forces ignored this order and advanced on the town. The UN troops surrendered the town without a fight when the Serbians under Mladic advanced, allowing many Muslim men and boys to be taken by the Serbs. Over 8,000 were killed in Srebrenica and buried in unmarked graves."