Thousands of mourners have gathered in Belgrade for the funeral of Ratko Mladić, a Serbian general convicted of orchestrating the worst massacre in Europe since World War II. His hero’s welcome home has raised international concern.
Known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for his role in the Balkans genocide of the 1990s, Mladić died in prison in late August at the age of 84 while serving a life sentence for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mladić remained a beloved figure among many Serbians, including politicians. His coffin was flown to Serbia on a government plane, draped in national flags, and carried off by uniformed soldiers. As his casket was driven from the airport, men gathered along the roads, holding up banners in his honor.
On Monday, thousands of people gathered in front of a small church in the Serbian capital to pay their respects. Armed forces stood guard over his casket, which was topped with his signature military hat and a sword, with a display of medals placed in front.
Outside the church, Serbian flags hung nearby, and a huge banner stretched across the street read: “Welcome, General, thanks be to your mother for bearing a hero.”
The scenes of military pomp have drawn criticism from the European Union’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, who canceled a planned visit to Serbia on Friday. “The return of his remains to Belgrade reminds Europe of the darkest pages in our recent history,” she said on social media.
Serbia has been negotiating EU membership since 2014, but progress has stalled in recent years under the populist Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić.
“The glorification surrounding [Mladić’s] death is incompatible with the values on which the EU path is built,” said Kos. “That path requires confronting the past, genuine reconciliation, and respecting the victims of war crimes. The values that underpin our common future are not negotiable.”
An EU spokesperson repeated the warning on Monday. “Any glorification of war criminals, genocide denial, and revisionism contradict the most fundamental European values and have no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries,” he said in a statement.
Mladić was one of the main architects of the ethnic cleansing policy during the Bosnian war, which killed more than 100,000 people and displaced over 2 million.
Key among his crimes was the 1,460-day siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, where civilians faced daily shelling and sniper attacks from Serb nationalist forces, resulting in more than 10,000 deaths.
The three-year conflict ended with the 1995 killing of at least 8,000 Bosniak Muslims in the town of Srebrenica. This crime shocked European governments that had spent decades working to prevent mass killings after the horrors of the mid-century, when Nazi Germany murdered 6 million Jews.
In Srebrenica, Mladić’s forces were filmed handing out sweets to children and promising their safe passage before thousands of Bosnian men and boys were rounded up, killed, and their bodies bulldozed into mass graves. “We give this town to the Serb people as a gift,” Mladić said in filmed comments at the time.View image in fullscreen
General Ratko Mladić in Sarajevo, April 1993. Photograph: Chris Helgren/Reuters
The killings have been described as an international failure, especially since Srebrenica had been declared a “safe haven” under UN protection—a global body established right after World War II specifically to help prevent such devastating conflicts in the future.
Read more: Ratko Mladić obituary
Mladić was arrested in Serbia in 2011 after spending 16 years as a fugitive, and in 2017, a UN tribunal in the Netherlands sentenced him to life in prison.
The goal of the Serbian leadership, which Mladić was tasked with carrying out—as determined by the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)—was to forcibly remove Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and other non-Serbs from Bosnian land to create a “Greater Serbia.”
While in detention, Mladić’s health had declined after suffering a series of strokes.
The Balkans war began after Yugoslavia broke apart in June 1991, when Slovenia and Croatia declared independence. Bosnian Serbs quickly took control of more than two-thirds of Bosnia and started the siege of Sarajevo. After three years of bloodshed, the Dayton agreement was signed in Dayton, Ohio, ending the war and establishing Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent state.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of frequently asked questions about Ratko Mladis funeral and its context ranging from basic facts to deeper analysis
Basic Facts Context
1 Who was Ratko Mladi
Ratko Mladi was a Bosnian Serb military commander during the Bosnian War He led the Army of Republika Srpska and was later convicted by a United Nations tribunal for genocide war crimes and crimes against humanity including the Srebrenica massacre
2 Why is he called the Butcher of Bosnia
He earned this nickname due to his role in the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of over 8000 Bosniak men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II
3 When and where did the funeral take place
He was buried on June 8 2025 in Belgrade Serbia The funeral was held in a public ceremony and he was laid to rest in the citys New Cemetery
4 Why was he given a heros funeral if he was a convicted war criminal
In Serbia many nationalists and rightwing groups view Mladi as a defender of the Serb people rather than a criminal The funeral was organized by nationalist groups and attended by thousands of supporters who reject the international courts verdict It was a political statement not an official state event
The War The Conviction
5 What exactly was the Srebrenica massacre
In July 1995 Mladis forces overran the UNdeclared safe area of Srebrenica They separated men and boys from women and then systematically executed over 8000 of them The International Court of Justice and the UN both ruled that this constituted genocide
6 Was he ever tried and convicted
Yes He was arrested in 2011 after 16 years on the run In 2017 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia found him guilty of genocide crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war He was sentenced to life in prison He died in prison in 2024 before his final appeal was fully concluded
