Dynamics of the Bosnian Genocide

            Soon after Yugoslavia invaded Bosnia as a result of its quest for independence, the official Bosnian Genocide began. The city in Bosnia that Milosevic first attacked was the capital city of the country, Sarajevo. Here, Milosevic employed Serb snipers who constantly gunned down many innocent people on the streets. The total number of deaths at this even range up to 3,500 people. Most of these victims were Bosnian Muslims, who were greatly hated by the nationalistic Milosevic.

        Afterwards, concentration camps similar to those of the Holocaust were set up as a place of the extermination of Bosnian Muslims. Mass shootings and large rape missions were enforced and were very common. It is interesting to note that this process if called the "ethnic cleansing" by many Serbs were in conflict with Muslims. At this time, the United Nations took a neutral approach to the situation at hand, believing that the conditions were not that serious. However, all this changed, when an international media group televised the bombing of the marketplace of Sarajevo on February 6, 1994, when nearly 68 people were killed along with 200 who were severly injured.

           Suddenly, as this televised report spread across the globe, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) forces demanded that Serbs leave Sarajevo. Quickly, Serb forces agreed to this ultimatum and stopped fire among Bosnian Muslims. Again, NATO forces proved to be ineffective as violence continuned without any further interference. Serbs continued the mass killings of Muslims despite agreeing that they would not do so again. It was not until the most famous mass killing of the genocide did the U.N. or NATO really take action. In 1995, Serb troops made their way into the Muslim town of Srebrenica, where they stripped about 40,000 Mulims of food and supplies and shelled many housing structures. About 7,500 mean were killed along the way. This was more significant than any other attack because Srebrenica was considered a "safe-zone" by the U.N. The U.N. did a poor job in maintaining this peace and realized that action needed to be taken to ensure that such an event would not occur again. The problem was that U.N. peacekeeping troops were given order to only able to execute military action if they were attacked,which became a problem as U.N. troops could not doing anything and had to standby while Muslims were being executed one by one in several communities across the region. In addition to defenses, the U.N. supplied aid to Muslims such as food and medicine in refugee areas.

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