Dutch State to Pay 20,000 Euros to Srebrenica Relatives
The Dutch defense ministry said Thursday it would pay 20,000 euros to relatives of three Bosnian Muslim men murdered after peacekeepers expelled them from a U.N. compound at Srebrenica in 1995.
The announcement follows a Dutch court's landmark ruling last year that the state was liable for the deaths, the first time a government has been held responsible for the actions of peacekeepers operating under a United Nations mandate.
"We deeply regret what happened to them and their family members and we hope that this can help them towards dealing with their loss," defense ministry spokesman Klaas Meijer told Agence France Presse.
The compensation is for the psychological damage suffered by the four relatives of the three dead men, with another possible sum to be awarded for "material" damage, such as loss of earnings, because of the killings, Meijer said.
The compensation will be paid to former U.N. interpreter Hasan Nuhanovic whose father, mother and brother were killed by Bosnian Serb forces after Dutch peacekeepers expelled them from the U.N. base.
Rizo Mustafic, an electrician at the base, was also killed after being sent to certain death at the hands of Bosnian Serb forces. His widow, son and daughter will each receive 20,000 euros ($27,700).
The Srebrenica massacre was the worst bloodshed in Europe since World War II.
Almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by troops commanded by Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who brushed aside lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers and overran the supposedly safe enclave in July 1995, during Bosnia's brutal three-year civil war.
Rights group Amnesty International hailed the ruling last year as "the first time an individual government has been held to account for the conduct of its peacekeeping troops under a U.N. mandate."
Mladic, dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia," and former Bosnian Serb political chief Radovan Karadzic are currently facing charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity before the Yugoslav war crimes court in The Hague.
Source: Agence France Presse
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