A UN official has confirmed that former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic died at the UN detention center in The Hague, Netherlands. Mladic was serving a life sentence after being convicted of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity related to the bloody conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995.
Mladic, who commanded Bosnian Serb forces, was considered one of the most controversial figures in the nearly four-year Balkan conflict. Details regarding the time and cause of death have not yet been released.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 2017, after being extradited from Serbia to The Hague in 2011 following more than a decade on the run. The conviction was upheld by an appeals chamber in 2021.
The Bosnian war was one of the deadliest conflicts in Europe since World War II, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and displacing millions. Mladic's passing closes a significant chapter in the region's war crimes prosecutions, although many issues related to reconciliation and justice remain unresolved.
This story is being updated as more information becomes available.
