Thousands Gather for Mladic Funeral in Belgrade

Thousands of people gathered outside a church in Belgrade on Monday to pay their respects to former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, who died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mourners carried Serbian flags and photographs of Mladic wearing a traditional Serbian military cap and lit candles outside the church. Free bus services were offered from Bosnia and towns across Serbia. Inside, Mladic’s coffin was displayed while six men, mainly war veterans from Serbia and Bosnia, took turns standing guard beside it.

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found Mladic guilty of genocide for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in which about 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed. He was also convicted over the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, during which about 10,000 people died.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos postponed a visit to Serbia last week because of what she described as the glorification of Mladic following his death. The funeral service was to be conducted by the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, after which Mladic was to be buried in a nearby cemetery beside his daughter, who died in 1994.

In Sarajevo, the funeral rekindled painful memories of the war. Zdravka Gvozdjar, whose nine-year-old son was killed during the siege, said Mladic should be remembered only as a “butcher”.

(Reuters, bak)