La muerte de Ratko Mladic: honores de héroe en Serbia, doloroso recuerdo en Bosnia

Former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic has passed away in a prison hospital in The Hague, according to Serbian broadcaster RTS. The 84-year-old had been grappling with multiple strokes in recent years. During the Bosnian civil war that followed Yugoslavia's dissolution, Mladic earned the moniker "Butcher of Bosnia" for his involvement in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

He was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1992-95 conflict in the Balkan nation, which claimed the lives of 100,000 individuals and displaced 2.2 million people. Convicted in 2016, Mladic was handed a life sentence shortly after. Prosecutors had presented evidence of Mladic's direct involvement in crimes across the conflict.

In 2012, prosecutor Dermot Groome stated that Mladic had orchestrated the goal of ethnically cleansing Bosnia. Mladic refused to plead guilty to the charges, displaying contempt for the proceedings and even sarcastically applauding the judges as they took their seats. His command over Sarajevo's 44-month siege involved a "terror campaign" of sniping and shelling, resulting in an estimated 10,000 deaths, primarily civilians.

During the Srebrenica massacre, Mladic's forces killed 8,000 Muslim men and boys as Dutch UN peacekeepers watched helplessly. It is estimated that over 100,000 people, mostly Bosniac Muslims, lost their lives during the conflict, with the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, enduring a three-year siege under Mladic's command. Reports suggest that Mladic's troops raped up to 15,000 women, the majority of whom were Muslim.

Following the war, Mladic retreated into hiding in 2000 after the fall of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's government. He remained at large until his arrest in May 2011 in Lazarevo, northeastern Serbia, and was subsequently flown to The Hague a few days later. In his early career, Mladic was a brash commander, often clad in military fatigues, who emphasized his role in defending his country and people during his initial court appearance.