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The BBC's Anna Holligan: "Lawyers representing the soldiers say they did try to protect the refugees"
A Dutch court has ruled that the Netherlands is liable for the killings of more than 300 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys at Srebrenica in Bosnia-Hercegovina in July 1995.
The 300 men and boys were among 5,000 Bosniaks, mostly women and children, sheltering with Dutch UN peacekeepers.
But the Dutch state was cleared over the deaths some 7,000 men killed around their Potocari base in Srebrenica.
The Srebrenica massacre is considered Europe's worst since World War Two.
CompensationThe case was launched by relatives of the victims under the name "Mothers of Srebrenica".
The Hague district court said that Dutch peacekeeping forces, Dutchbat, did not do enough to protect 300 of the Bosniaks and should have been aware of the potential for genocide to be committed.
It said the state should have known they would be killed by Bosnian Serbs when they handed them over.
"It can be said with sufficient certainty that, had Dutchbat allowed them to stay at the compound, these men would have remained alive. By cooperating in the deportation of these men, Dutchbat acted unlawfully," the court added.
It said that the Dutch state must accept some degree of responsibility for what happened and pay compensation to the families of the 300 victims.
But the court stopped short of holding the Netherlands liable for the fate of the majority of men killed in Srebrenica, saying that many of the male refugees at the time had not fled to the UN compound at Potocari but "fled to the woods in the vicinity of Srebrenica".
The BBC's Anna Holligan, in the courtroom, says it was a hugely significant ruling but a heart-breaking verdict for the women because the Dutch state was only found partly responsible for the deaths of 300 of the more than 7,000 men killed.
This, she says, means many of the relatives of the victims will not be entitled to compensation.
"Obviously the court has no sense of justice,'' said Munira Subasic, a representative of the relatives' group.
"How is it possible to divide victims and tell one mother that the Dutch state is responsible for the death of her son on one side of the wire and not for the son on the other side?'' she added.
During the 1992-1995 war, Bosniaks from the surrounding area sought refuge in the town of Srebrenica as the Bosnian Serb army carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing, expelling non-Serb populations.
The UN declared Srebrenica a "safe area" for civilians in 1993. It fell in July 1995, after more than two years under siege.
Thousands of Bosniaks went to the UN base just outside Srebrenica at Potocari, where the Dutch peacekeepers were stationed.
However, the Dutch soldiers told them they would be safe and handed the men and boys over to the Bosnian Serb army.
While the women and young children were transported to a Bosniak-majority area, more than 7,000 men and boys were taken away from the UN base by the Bosnian Serbs, and killed.
Many of their remains still lie in mass graves around eastern Bosnia.
The two key figures of the wartime Bosnian Serb leadership - one-time President Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic - are on trial for war crimes at the UN tribunal in The Hague.
Timeline of Srebrenica siege:6-8 July 1995: Bosnian Serb forces start shelling Srebrenica enclave
9 July: Bosnian Serbs step up shelling; thousands of Bosnian Muslim refugees flee to Srebrenica
10 July: Dutch peacekeepers request UN air support after Bosnian Serbs shell Dutch positions. Large crowds of refugees gather around Dutch positions
11 July: More than 20,000 refugees flee to main Dutch base at Potocari. Serbs threaten to kill Dutch hostages and shell refugees after Dutch F-16 fighters bomb Serb positions. Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic enters Srebrenica and delivers ultimatum that Muslims must hand over weapons
12 July: An estimated 23,000 women and children are deported to Muslim territory; men aged 12-77 taken "for interrogation" and held in trucks and warehouses
13 July: First killings of unarmed Muslims take place near village of Kravica. Peacekeepers hand over some 5,000 Muslims sheltering at Dutch base in exchange for the release of 14 Dutch peacekeepers held by Bosnian Serbs
14 July: Reports of massacres start to emerge
Timeline: Siege of Srebrenica
Continue reading the main storyThe former Yugoslavia was a Socialist state created after German occupation in World War II and a bitter civil war. A federation of six republics, it brought together Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Slovenes and others under a comparatively relaxed communist regime. Tensions between these groups were successfully suppressed under the leadership of President Tito.
After Tito's death in 1980, tensions re-emerged. Calls for more autonomy within Yugoslavia by nationalist groups led in 1991 to declarations of independence in Croatia and Slovenia. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav army lashed out, first in Slovenia and then in Croatia. Thousands were killed in the latter conflict which was paused in 1992 under a UN-monitored ceasefire.
Bosnia, with a complex mix of Serbs, Muslims and Croats, was next to try for independence. Bosnia's Serbs, backed by Serbs elsewhere in Yugoslavia, resisted. Under leader Radovan Karadzic, they threatened bloodshed if Bosnia's Muslims and Croats - who outnumbered Serbs - broke away. Despite European blessing for the move in a 1992 referendum, war came fast.
Yugoslav army units, withdrawn from Croatia and renamed the Bosnian Serb Army, carved out a huge swathe of Serb-dominated territory. Over a million Bosnian Muslims and Croats were driven from their homes in ethnic cleansing. Serbs suffered too. The capital Sarajevo was besieged and shelled. UN peacekeepers, brought in to quell the fighting, were seen as ineffective.
International peace efforts to stop the war failed, the UN was humiliated and over 100,000 died. The war ended in 1995 after NATO bombed the Bosnian Serbs and Muslim and Croat armies made gains on the ground. A US-brokered peace divided Bosnia into two self-governing entities, a Bosnian Serb republic and a Muslim-Croat federation lightly bound by a central government.
In August 1995 the Croatian army stormed areas in Croatia under Serb control prompting thousands to flee. Soon Croatia and Bosnia were fully independent. Slovenia and Macedonia had already gone. Montenegro left later. In 1999 Kosovo's ethnic Albanians fought Serbs in another brutal war to gain independence. Serbia ended the conflict beaten, battered and alone.
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How are you affected by the ruling? Were you in Srebrenica during the war? You can email your experiences to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk, using the subject line 'Srebrenica'.
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