Why and How did the massacre start?
The Srebrenica Massacre occurred in 1995, and was the single worst massacre since the Holocaust in Europe (Fitzgerald, 2013). The massacre was fuelled by the ethnic cleansing campaign led by the Serbs aiming to kill the Muslim community, which is a violation of human rights. On the 16th of April 1993, the Security Council placed Srebrenica as a civilian safe zone for displaced and injured people. They also established 5 other safe zones around this region. However the UN troops stationed in Srebrenica did not do anything to prevent attacks of the Serbs. The 600 Dutch soldiers were forced to disarm due to their peacekeeping mission not allowing them to use force. Source 3 implies the UN knew the Serbs were going to attack the safe zone stationed in Srebrenica two weeks before it began, however the UN did not prevent this and “were instead only concerned about the well-being of their own forces and had been instructed to use weapons only in self-defence,” (IRSN, 2007). Also 6 weeks before the massacre Lieutenant –General Bernard Janvier, told the UN to abandon these safe areas (Block, 1995). This implies that they knew of the attacks of the Serbs but effortlessly did not want to try to stop these murders within 6 weeks. The Serbian forces invaded the safe zones in July containing 20,000 Bosniak refugees, and murdered freely and raped women. The UN troops stood by and still used no force. “By July 18th 7,800 Bosniaks were dead, due largely to an ill-equipped and unprepared UN force.” (Fitzgerald, 2013).