• Bomb destroys war memorial in divided Bosnian town

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    A Bosnian woman passes the remains of a monument in southern city Mostar, 65 miles from the capital of Sarajevo, on Monday. A bomb blast destroyed earlier in the day destroyed the memorial honoring soldiers of Bosnia's Muslim-dominated wartime army.

    By Maja Zuvela, Reuters

    SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — A bomb blast destroyed a monument to fallen soldiers of Bosnia's Muslim-dominated wartime army on Monday in the southern town of Mostar, where divisions between ethnic Croats and Muslims still run deep.


    Police said an "explosive device" had destroyed the lily-shaped monument in front of Mostar's city hall in the early hours of Monday morning.

    Bosnia's international peace overseer, Valentin Inzko, said he was "appalled" by the attack and appealed for calm.

    "This violence must not be allowed to spread," Inzko said in a statement.

    Home to around 70,000 people, Mostar saw heavy fighting during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

    Despite Western efforts to encourage reintegration, the town remains largely divided between Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) on the east bank of the Neretva river and Croats on the west, where the city hall is located.

    No one was injured in the explosion.

    "Police are investigating the circumstances and hope to locate the perpetrator soon," Srecko Bosnjak, spokesman for the Mostar police, said.

    The monument to the Bosnian army was built last year, next to a memorial in honor of Croat veterans of the conflict.

    Post-war violence in Mostar has been largely confined to clashes between rival football fans, but political leaders continue to resist the efforts of Western overseers to unify the town.

    Each community has its own utility services, electricity provider and education system.

    Ethnic politicking has paralyzed the town more than once, and in October last year Mostar was the only town in Bosnia where local elections were postponed due to a dispute over how to hold the vote.

    Related stories:
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    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • 35,000 rapes, a handful of prosecutions: Bosnia war victims seek justice

    By Reuters

    TUZLA, Bosnia -- Fika was 15 years old, and her sister 17, when they were captured and repeatedly raped by Bosnian Serb soldiers who swept through eastern Bosnia early in the country's 1992-95 war.

    "We were forced to watch each other being raped, and I still feel my pain and the pain of my sister," she said. "They wanted us to admit we were spies, so they beat us till they knocked out our teeth."

    Twenty years on, Fika is among thousands of Bosnian Muslim women whose search for recognition and support from the Bosnian state is being blocked by Bosnian Serb leaders who fear a wave of compensation claims. Her sister died at the hands of their torturers.

    Rights groups are losing patience, warning that the psychological toll is only getting worse with time.

    "The silence surrounding the wartime rape of women in the Serb Republic ... is deafening," Amnesty International wrote in October.

    Fewer than 40 rape cases have been prosecuted in the 17 years since the war ended, and legislation at the state level to extend compensation and rehabilitation rights to rape victims of the war is gathering dust.

    On the 17th anniversary of Europe's worst massacre since World War II, Muslims in Bosnia attended funeral services for 520 newly identified victims. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.

    The lesson of Bosnia has spurred a push by Britain to raise awareness of sexual violence in war when it takes over the chairmanship of the G8 group of nations next year.

    'Butcher of Bosnia' Ratko Mladic goes on trial over slaughter at Srebrenica

    The British government plans to send police officers, lawyers, psychologists and forensic experts to Bosnia and other conflict and post-conflict countries to work with local authorities.

    A delicate balance of Muslims, Serbs and Croats, Bosnia was torn apart as federal Yugoslavia dissolved. An estimated 100,000 people died, most of them Muslims. Some estimates put the number of women raped at up to 35,000, again the majority of them Muslims.


    With peace, the country was split into two autonomous regions - the Serb Republic and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, home to mainly Muslims and Croats. The country is ruled by a system of ethnic quotas, with each region enjoying a high level of autonomy and the central state often left powerless to legislate over the entire territory.

    The story of Fika, as she asked to be called, is indicative. She declined to give her real name, fearing the stigma attached to many wartime rape victims in Bosnia. Reuters reached her through a non-governmental organization that helps rape victims.

    Caught up in a wave of ethnic cleansing of Muslims from eastern Bosnia, Fika was captured and held at a Serb-run detention camp in the town of Vlasenica. She says she lost count of how many times she was raped by her captors.

    Finally released, Fika fled to the northern town of Tuzla, now part of the Federation, dropped out of school and struggled to support her mother and younger sister.

    Fifteen years ago Tuesday, a peace treaty negotiated by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was signed, ending the war in Bosnia. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    Horrors of Srebrenica massacre set out at Mladic trial

    Now 34 and a mother, she has not told her three children what happened to her, nor will she return to her home in Vlasenica, which is now part of the Serb Republic and where she believes her rapists still live.

    Three years ago, spurred by recurring nightmares, she raised the courage to report two of them to police in the region, but charges were never brought.

    She has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and receives $330 per month from the Muslim-Croat Federation as compensation.

    Those like her who live in the Serb Republic receive nothing, however, because the law there only recognizes those who can prove damage to at least 60 percent of their body as civilian victims of war, disregarding psychological trauma.

    'Line of blood': 11,541 red chairs symbolize victims of siege of Sarajevo

    Fika told her husband what happened to her, but says she regrets doing so because of the toll it has taken on their marriage.

    "I have no idea what keeps me going," Fika said. "My heart is rotten."

    "For me, the war never ended. And it never will,” she added.

    At least three unsuccessful bids have been made in recent years to enshrine the rights of wartime rape victims in state law. Bosnian Muslims accuse the Serb Republic of blocking their efforts.

    Srebrenica: The story that will never end

    Amnesty International said the Serb Republic "is still failing to acknowledge the needs of wartime rape survivors - indeed, the existence of a problem at all."

    Bosnian Serb War Invalids Minister Petar Djokic said his government was exploring ways to resolve the issue.

    "We have already discussed this with some non-governmental organizations dealing with this problem to see how we can resolve this institutionally in the best way," Djokic told Reuters, "without creating another problem for ourselves through any attempted abuse of the social support system.”

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  • Horrors of Srebrenica massacre set out at Mladic trial

    The war crimes trial of Bosnian Serb ex-army chief Ratko Mladic has been postponed because prosecutors failed to disclose some evidence to the defense. ITV's Bill Neely reports.

    By msnbc.com news services

    THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Prosecutors in the genocide trial of Serb general Ratko Mladic on Thursday described five days of terror in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995, when troops under his command massacred more than 7,000 unarmed Muslim boys and men.

    Mladic, 70, sat listening with his back to the public after being warned at the start of his trial on Wednesday for making a throat-slitting gesture to a relative of Srebrenica victims.

    The massacre, Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two, helped finally to galvanize Western powers into launching air strikes on Serb forces to bring the 1992-95 Bosnian war to an end.

    "This was and will remain genocide," said prosecutor Peter McCloskey, showing grainy video footage of bodies outside a warehouse where about 1,000 prisoners were gunned down.

    "The evidence of this crime is overwhelming ... We will focus on linking General Mladic and his men to the crime."

    Mladic is accused of commanding Bosnian Serb troops who waged a campaign of murder and persecution to drive Muslims and Croats out of territory they considered part of Serbia. His troops rained shells and snipers' bullets down on civilians in the 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

    However, there was a blow for efforts to ensure that the trial of Mladic, whose lawyers say he has had three strokes and a heart attack, does not parallel that of Slobodan Milosevic, which lasted so long that he died before a verdict was reached.

    Srebrenica: The story that will never end

    The judges accepted a defense argument that prosecutors had not disclosed their case properly, but did not say if they would grant the full six-month delay requested by the lawyers before the trial enters its next stage, where evidence is presented.

    Presiding judge Alphons Orie said judges will analyze the "scope and full impact" of the error and aim to establish a new starting date "as soon as possible." The presentation of evidence was supposed to begin later this month.

    Mladic looks frail and thin compared to the stocky commander seen in wartime barking orders to shell Bosnian Muslim positions, but has benefited visibly from the medical treatment he has received while in detention.

    McCloskey said prosecutors planned to call scores of witnesses, including 11 survivors of the massacre as well as executioners from the Bosnian Serb army.

    "In only five days, forces of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic expelled the population from Srebrenica and Zepa and murdered more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys."

    He said nearly 6,000 bodies had been exhumed from mass graves and secondary sites where bodies were reburied to conceal them in remote mountain areas. Their remains have been identified by DNA testing.

    In the public area, mothers of Srebrenica victims wept as they listened to the proceedings.

    "My husband was 45 years old. He was taken away and killed only because he had a different name and different religion," said Zumra Sahomerovic.

    "There is no punishment good enough for him (Mladic)."

    Slideshow: The charges against Ratko Mladic

    Serge Ligtenberg / Getty Images

    A career soldier, Mladic stands accused of orchestrating the siege of Sarajevo and the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.

    Launch slideshow

    The prosecution says the massacre was part of a strategic plan, devised with Milosevic, then Serbian president, and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, to "cleanse" parts of the Balkans of non-Serbs and create a pure Serb state.

    Among the 11 charges against Mladic are genocide, murder, rape, imprisonment and acts of terror for actions that also include the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in which 10,000 died, and the establishment of a number of brutal prison camps.

    Like Karadzic, who is also on trial in The Hague, Mladic faces a sentence of up to life imprisonment if found guilty.

    Both were indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at the end of the Bosnian war in 1995, but remained free in Serbia for more than a decade before being tracked down. 

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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