In Belgrade, thousands gathered to bury Ratko Mladic — a man convicted of orchestrating the worst mass atrocity in Europe since the Second World War — with military honors and the blessing of the Serbian Patriarch, while the 8,000 souls of Srebrenica went unmentioned. President Aleksandar Vucic, facing his most serious electoral challenge in years, kept a careful distance from the ceremony while allowing its nationalist symbolism to do its work. The moment reveals an old and recurring tension in post-conflict societies: how nations remember their wars, who gets to name the dead, and how grief
Mladic's Military Funeral Stokes Nationalism Ahead of Serbian Election
Approximately 8,000 Bosniak civilians and prisoners were massacred by Mladic's forces in Srebrenica in July 1995; additionally, 16 people died in a canopy collapse at Novi Sad railway station in November 2024.