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Which forces carried out the Srebrenica genocide?

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Two women in headscarves embrace and mourn over a green coffin among rows of identical coffins at the Potocari cemetery during the Srebrenica massacre mass funeral. — Srebrenica genocide Women mourning over a coffin before the mass funeral for 136 newly identified victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, 2015.

The Srebrenica genocide was perpetrated by Bosnian Serb forces. These military units operated under the command of General Ratko Mladić, who oversaw the operation that resulted in the mass murder of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in July 1995.1234

The campaign was directed by the leadership of the self-declared autonomous Republika Srpska, specifically president Radovan Karadžić, who ordered his military to create an environment of total insecurity for the inhabitants of Srebrenica. While Bosnian Serb forces were primarily responsible for the killings, evidence also documented the participation of a police unit from Serbia in the execution of Bosniak captives.534

Following the conflict, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) held senior Bosnian Serb officers, including Mladić and Karadžić, criminally responsible for the genocide. In 2005, the Bosnian Serb government officially acknowledged that thousands of Bosnian Serbs were implicated in the killings.16