Liable over 300 Srebrenica deaths
The Hague district court finds the state liable for the death of more than 300 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, but clears the state over the deaths of more than 7,000 other men killed in and around Srebrenica . The said deaths were among the 5,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) sheltering with Dutch UN peacekeepers at that time. The case was launched by the “Mothers of Srebrenica”, a group of relatives of the victims of the Srebrenica massacre. The district court rules that the Dutchbat, the Dutch peacekeeping forces, did not do enough to protect more than 300 Bosniaks and should have been aware of the possibility of genocide to be committed when they handed the Bosniaks over from their UN compound.
It can be said with sufficient certainty that, had Dutchbat allowed them to stay at the compound, these men would have remained alive. By co-operating in the deportation of these men, Dutchbat acted unlawfully.