Allan Little: I met dangerously fanatical Mladić early in Bosnian war
Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladić, dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia" for his actions during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, has died in prison. BBC special correspondent Allan Little was there throughout the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, and met Mladić in the early months of the Bosnian war. At night, you could watch the fires of ethnic cleansing across the landscape. The flames provided the only light under the night sky and the black valley would glimmer with flecks of orange. You could watch the men of our village move about silently in the shadows of their homes, each armed with some ancient weapon salvaged from wars long ago and, like the fears and the suspicions and the distrusts, handed down through the generations.
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The grief of it connected us to the sentiments of the war – the impulse to vengeance and counter vengeance – that were so much a feature of what we were witnessing. Convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Mladić dies aged 84 The monstrous crimes of Ratko Mladic, the 'Butcher of Bosnia' 'We're worried about our future': Srebrenica massacre's tensions still felt 30 years on Watch our pick of standout clips from across the BBC 'Everything is under mud': Nepal death toll rises to 389 amid fears of new flood Tracing the deadly path of the Nepal-Tibet flash flood Uefa preparing criminal legal action against Infantino Want your job application to stand out? Their home town had fallen to a Serb advance that had come without warning.
