# Bosnian War The **Bosnian War** (1992–1995) was the deadliest of the [[Yugoslav Wars]]. After Bosnia and Herzegovina voted for independence, Bosnian Serb forces backed by [[Slobodan Milošević]]'s Belgrade and the Yugoslav army seized about two-thirds of the country. They drove out its Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Croat populations in the campaigns that gave the world the phrase [[Ethnic Cleansing]], and they besieged Sarajevo for almost four years. The war killed about **100,000 people** and displaced **more than 2.2 million**, over half the pre-war population. It ended with [[NATO]] air strikes and a US-brokered peace that still governs the country. ## Timeline | Date | Event | |---|---| | **29 Feb – 1 Mar 1992** | Independence referendum: 99.7% vote yes, on a turnout of about 64%. Most Bosnian Serbs boycott it | | **5–6 Apr 1992** | The siege of Sarajevo begins. The European Community recognises Bosnia on 6 April, the date usually taken as the start of the war | | **Oct 1992 – Feb 1994** | A separate war between Bosnian Croat forces and the Bosniak-led government | | **5 Feb 1994** | The first Markale market massacre in Sarajevo kills 68 people | | **18 Mar 1994** | The Washington Agreement, brokered by the [[Bill Clinton]] administration, ends the Croat–Bosniak war and creates the Bosniak–Croat Federation | | **11 Jul 1995** | Srebrenica falls. More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys are killed in the days that follow: the [[Srebrenica Genocide]] | | **28 Aug 1995** | A second Markale massacre kills 43 people | | **Late Aug – Sep 1995** | NATO's Operation Deliberate Force bombs Bosnian Serb positions | | **21 Nov 1995** | The Dayton Agreement is initialled in Ohio by Milošević, Bosnia's Alija Izetbegović and Croatia's Franjo Tuđman. It is signed in Paris on **14 December 1995** | | **29 Feb 1996** | The siege of Sarajevo is declared over after **1,425 days** | ## The toll The most thorough count is the Sarajevo Research and Documentation Center's census of the dead, which named **97,207 people** in 2007. It was published as the *Bosnian Book of the Dead* in 2013, with about 5,000 more names still being checked. About 40% of the victims were civilians. Among the civilian dead, about 83% were Bosniak, 10% Serb and 5–6% Croat. Counts of the siege of Sarajevo differ: about 11,500 Sarajevans killed, among them more than 1,600 children, by one widely used figure, and 13,952 dead including soldiers by the documentation centre's. ## The verdicts - **Radovan Karadžić**, the Bosnian Serb political leader, was arrested in Belgrade in July 2008. He was convicted in 2016 of genocide at Srebrenica, persecution and terror against Sarajevo, and other crimes. On appeal in March 2019 his sentence was raised to **life imprisonment**. - **Ratko Mladić**, the Bosnian Serb military commander, was arrested in May 2011. He was convicted in November 2017 of genocide at Srebrenica, persecution, extermination, terrorising Sarajevo's civilians and taking UN peacekeepers hostage. His **life sentence** was upheld in June 2021. - Both were acquitted of genocide in the other municipalities charged; the courts found genocide at Srebrenica. ## The peace that never settled Dayton divided Bosnia into two entities, the Bosniak–Croat Federation and the Serb-run **Republika Srpska**, under an international High Representative with the power to impose laws and remove officials. That structure is now the main battleground in Bosnian politics. - **February 2025:** A Bosnian court convicted Republika Srpska's president, **Milorad Dodik**, of defying the High Representative. It sentenced him to a year in prison and a six-year ban from office. He answered by declaring that "there is no more Bosnia-Herzegovina." He lost his office that August, and the prison term was converted to a fine. - **29 October 2025:** The US Treasury lifted sanctions on Dodik, his family and dozens of allies without giving a public explanation. Dodik had met Russia's foreign minister the day before. - **October 2026:** As his party claimed victory in Bosnia's general election, Dodik thanked Donald Trump, saying that without Trump's win "we would be political corpses today," and thanked Vladimir Putin. > [!important] ⭐ The finding: the Trump administration lifted the sanctions on the man undoing Dayton > The United States brokered the Dayton peace and had sanctioned Dodik for obstructing it. In 2025 Washington reversed that policy without public reasons, the same year he was convicted for defying the peace's enforcer. Dodik's own account of his survival credits Trump and Putin together. It is the Balkan version of a pattern elsewhere on this map: sanctions relief for a nationalist ally, with nothing said in public about why. ## See Also - [[Yugoslav Wars]] · [[Srebrenica Genocide]] · [[Slobodan Milošević]] · [[Serbia]] · [[Ethnic Cleansing]] · [[Genocide]] · [[NATO]] · [[Bill Clinton]] · [[Islamophobia]]