Obituary: Ratko Mladic, war criminal convicted of Srebrenica genocide, dies

Ratko Mladic, also known as the "butcher of Bosnia," has reportedly passed away at the age of either 83 or 84. He was convicted in 2017 for war crimes committed in Bosnia, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, which the court deemed one of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II. Mladic and his political ally Radovan Karadzic orchestrated the slaughter of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

Former UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein described him as "the epitome of evil" after his conviction. However, most Serbs still revered him, with a Bosnian Serb veteran claiming that to convict him would be a disgrace. Mladic insisted he was chosen by fate to defend the Serb people from Western aggression. He spent his final years in jail for genocide, but his reputation grew during his trial. Serbs believed that without him, their people would have suffered even more.