A Dutch court has ruled that the Netherlands is liable for the deaths of more than 300 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica in Bosnia-Hercegovina in July 1995.

Thousands of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) sheltered with the Dutch UN peacekeepers, Ducthbat, in the hope that they would be protected from the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the bloody civil war that engulfed the former Yugoslavia.

However, after a two year siege, the enclave fell to advancing Bosnian Serb forces, with the international community standing only providing minimal air support for the troops on the ground.

Whilst 8,372 people were executed by Bosnian Serb forces at Srebrenica, making it the worst massacre in Europe since the end of the Second World War, the Hague district court court found the Netherlands liable only for the deaths of the men and boys that they handed over to the advancing Bosnian Serbs from the UN compound of Potocari.

The court commented:

“It can be said with sufficient certainty that, had Dutchbat allowed them to stay at the compound, these men would have remained alive. By co-operating in the deportation of these men, Dutchbat acted unlawfully.”

The Netherlands was not found to be liable for the thousands of other people massacred after they fled from Srebrenica to the surrounding hills and forests.

Former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and former General Ratko Mladic are both on trial for war crimes at the UN tribunal in The Hague.