All events · After the Wall
Bosnian War and Ethnic Cleansing
1992–1995 · Balkans, Anatolia & the Caucasus
Displacement
Territory Seized
Mass Killing
Sexual Violence
Displaced
2.2 million
about 2.2 million people, more than half of Bosnia and Herzegovina's prewar population of roughly 4.4 million
Share of the population affected
50%
of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the census of 1991, the last before the war, 1991
Killed
95,940–104,732
conflict deaths incl. combatants
Territory
51,197 km²
Bosnia and Herzegovina's entire territory, partitioned by the 1995 Dayton Agreement into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (about 51%) and Republika Srpska (about 49%), largely following wartime front lines
Open on the interactive map →
What happened
The breakup of Yugoslavia triggered a three-sided war in Bosnia and Herzegovina among Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats, marked by sieges (notably Sarajevo, besieged for nearly four years), concentration camps and systematic campaigns of ethnic cleansing. The ICTY convicted numerous Bosnian Serb, Croat and, to a lesser extent, Bosniak commanders and political leaders of war crimes and crimes against humanity, with the largest share of documented atrocities attributed to Bosnian Serb forces. The 1995 Dayton Agreement ended the fighting and froze the resulting demographic partition into two entities. An estimated 100,000 people were killed and about 2.2 million displaced, one of the largest displacement crises in Europe since 1945.
Parties
Bosnian Serb forces (VRS), backed by Serbia, waged a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Bosniaks and Croats; Bosniak and Croat forces also displaced civilians in areas under their control, including during the 1992-94 Croat-Bosniak war
Disputed
The overall scale and attribution of atrocities differ by source; Bosnian Serb political leaders and Republika Srpska institutions have historically minimized or disputed ICTY findings, while ICTY and ICJ (Bosnia v. Serbia) judgments stand as the formal legal record for specific crimes, including genocide at Srebrenica.
The denominator
The 1991 Yugoslav census counted 4,377,033 people in Bosnia and Herzegovina: about 43.5 per cent Bosniak, 31.2 per cent Serb and 17.4 per cent Croat. It is the standard baseline used by the ICTY and by post-war demographic studies.
The affected figure combines internally displaced people and refugees abroad at the war's peak; a significant number were displaced more than once, so it overstates the number of distinct individuals somewhat.
Where the baseline comes from
On the death toll
Two independent counts converge: the Research and Documentation Centre in Sarajevo (Mirsad Tokača, 'Bosnian Book of the Dead') named 95,940 dead, and the ICTY Office of the Prosecutor's Demographic Unit reached a census-based estimate of 104,732 killed in a January 2010 report after twelve years of data collection. Both figures displaced the wartime Bosnian government estimate of 200,000-250,000, which is still favoured by some Bosniak political actors and victims' associations who regard the lower counts as minimising the war; some Bosnian Serb actors in turn dispute the ethnic distribution within these totals. The counts include soldiers as well as civilians.
Documented forms of violence
Mass KillingSummary ExecutionSexual ViolenceTortureStarvation and SiegeArbitrary DetentionEnforced DisappearanceDestruction of PropertyCultural Destruction
Documented by the ICTY in Krstić (genocide and mass execution at Srebrenica), Kunarac (rape, torture and sexual enslavement at Foča), and the Prijedor and Sarajevo-siege cases (detention camps, torture, terrorising a civilian population by siege and sniping, and destruction of homes and religious property), and by the ICJ's 2007 judgment.
Formal findings
- ICTY (Appeals Chamber) (2004) — Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstić: confirmed that Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide against the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica in July 1995; Krstić convicted of aiding and abetting genocide — source
- International Court of Justice (2007) — Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro: genocide was committed at Srebrenica in July 1995, but Serbia was not responsible for committing it; Serbia did violate its obligations to prevent the genocide and to punish it by failing to transfer Ratko Mladić to the ICTY — source
- ICTY (Trial Chamber) (2001) — Prosecutor v. Kunarac, Kovač and Vuković ('Foča'): first convictions for rape, torture and enslavement of Muslim women and girls as crimes against humanity — source
Movements mapped
- Prijedor area (Bosniaks/Croats expelled) → Federation territory / abroad300,000
- Podrinje enclaves → Tuzla (Bosniaks)100,000
- Sarajevo suburbs → Republika Srpska (Serbs, post-Dayton 1996)60,000
Countries touched, on present-day borders
Bosnia and Herz., Croatia
Related entries
Sources