In Bosnia, Muslims represented the largest single population group by 1971. More Serbs and Croats migrated over the next two decades, and in a 1991 census Bosnia’s population of some 4 million was 44 percent Bosnian, 31 percent Serb, and 17 percent Croatian.
They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general.
1. Concentration. Surround the area to be cleansed and after warning the resident Serbs -- often they are urged to leave or are at least told to mark their houses with white flags -- intimidate the target population with artillery fire and arbitrary executions and then bring them out into the streets.
2. Decapitation. Execute political leaders and those capable of taking their places: lawyers, judges, public officials, writers, professors.
3. Separation. Divide women, children, and old men from men of "fighting age" -- sixteen years to sixty years old.
4. Evacuation. Transport women, children, and old men to the border, expelling them into a neighboring territory or country.
5. Liquidation. Execute "fighting age" men, dispose of bodies.
They targeted for extinction the forty thousand Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general.
- The multi-ethnic republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina quickly became the site of the deadliest warfare and the target of an ‘ethnic cleansing.’ An estimate of 100,000 people were killed. 80% of whom were Bosniaks. An estimated 20,000-50,000 Bosnian Muslim women had been raped by Bosnian Serb soldiers in a systematic campaign of humiliation and psychological terror.
1. Concentration. Surround the area to be cleansed and after warning the resident Serbs -- often they are urged to leave or are at least told to mark their houses with white flags -- intimidate the target population with artillery fire and arbitrary executions and then bring them out into the streets.
2. Decapitation. Execute political leaders and those capable of taking their places: lawyers, judges, public officials, writers, professors.
3. Separation. Divide women, children, and old men from men of "fighting age" -- sixteen years to sixty years old.
4. Evacuation. Transport women, children, and old men to the border, expelling them into a neighboring territory or country.
5. Liquidation. Execute "fighting age" men, dispose of bodies.
- The deportation of Srebrenica's population took 4 days, and the UN assisted in a way it didn't foresee and couldn't prevent: the Serbs removed the Dutch soldiers' blue peacekeeping helmets and later wore them themselves to trick escapees into handing themselves over.
- Up to 7,500 men, and boys over 13 years old, were killed. They were trucked or marched to their places of death. Up to 3,000, many in the act of trying to escape, were shot or decapitated in the fields.
- 1,500 were locked in a warehouse and sprayed with machine gun fire and grenades. Others died in their thousands on farms, football fields, school playgrounds. The whole action was carried out with military efficiency.