On Monday, a crowd paid tribute in front of the coffin of the former military commander of Bosnian Serbs, Ratko Mladić, at a funeral held in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Mladić was convicted of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed during the Bosnian war in the 1990s, and found guilty for his role in the Srebrenica Massacre.
The massacre occurred in July 1995 and resulted in the death of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and teenagers, considered the worst massacre in Europe since World War II. Mladić died in late August, at age 84, in The Hague, in the Netherlands, where he was serving his prison sentence.
The international press called the former general the "Butcher of the Balkans" and "Butcher of Bosnia," references to the brutality of the crimes for which he was convicted. The controversial funeral in Belgrade provoked outrage in the European Union and the international community.
