Ex-Bosnian Serb warlord who oversaw atrocities, dies in prison at 84

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Ratko Mladic, the bullish Bosnian Serb general whose forces rained shells and snipers’ bullets on Sarajevo and carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, has died while serving a life sentence for his crimes, U.N. officials said. U.N. court officials said that Mladic died in a U.N. prison hospital in The Hague, Netherlands. A family member of Mladic, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, confirmed the reports for the AP and said Mladic’s son, Darko Mladic, was on the way to The Hague. The U.N. tribunal for war crimes committed during the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s sentenced Mladic to life in prison in 2017 in what was considered a key step toward bringing justice to the victims. He had been in custody since 2011 after many years on the run.

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Scoop News DeskBelgrade · Published Thursday, August 27, 2026 at 4:32 AM UTCUpdated Friday, August 28, 2026 at 12:21 AM UTC

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But while mothers of victims “are still carrying the pain in our souls” 31 years later, “we are still listening to denials, we are still listening to how Ratko Mladic was a hero for the Serbs,” she said. “I am sorry that he died and that he did not suffer for a little while longer, that he didn’t wait for more and dream about the eyes of our children,” she said.

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