BELGRADE, Serbia — The remains of former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, who passed away last week while serving a life sentence for genocide and other atrocities during the Bosnian war, are scheduled to be repatriated to Serbia on Thursday, President Aleksandar Vucic announced.
Vucic told reporters that the United Nations tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, released Mladic’s body after his death in a local hospital. The court has yet to issue a statement.
Vucic indicated that Mladic’s family will disclose funeral arrangements in the coming days. He anticipates that a substantial number of supporters may attend the ceremony. Despite his conviction for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the UN tribunal, many in Serbia regard Mladic as a hero.
“Ensuring security for everyone will be challenging,” Vucic remarked. He added that Serbia’s police and intelligence services anticipate that “tens of thousands” could converge on the event. “Our security agencies will have a demanding task, and we will deploy all available resources to maintain safety.”
Mladic was sentenced in 2017 for orchestrating the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, which claimed more than 8,000 Muslim lives; for the prolonged siege of Sarajevo throughout the 1992‑95 conflict; and for additional war crimes, including the establishment of concentration camps for non‑Serb civilians and captured enemy combatants.
Following Mladic’s death last Thursday, thousands of Serbs gathered for vigils and processions in his memory. The events provoked criticism in a region still marked by ethnic divisions more than three decades after the conflict began, when Bosnian Serbs seized large swaths of territory to establish their own entity.
Families of Mladic’s victims have stated that his conviction by the UN tribunal provided at least a measure of justice for the brutal loss of their relatives.
Serbia, which supported the Bosnian Serbs during the war, is officially pursuing European Union membership while maintaining a defiant stance regarding its wartime role. Last week Vucic accused Western powers and the The Hague tribunal of singling out Serbs for blame and failing to deliver justice for Serb victims. He also criticized the tribunal for what he termed uncivilized conduct, notably its refusal to grant Mladic humanitarian release so he could die in his homeland.
The Srebrenica massacre was Europe’s first recognized genocide since World War II. Once designated a UN “safe haven” for Muslims, the town fell to Serb forces, who ordered men and boys to undress, executed them, and disposed of their bodies in mass graves using bulldozers.
Mladic stood as one of the most infamous figures of the Bosnian war, which claimed more than 100,000 lives and displaced over one million people before the 1995 US‑mediated peace accord.
