RismadarVoice Reporters
September 7, 2026
Thousands of people gathered in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, on Monday to pay their respects to former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, who died last week while serving a life sentence after being convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Mourners gathered outside a church in Belgrade carrying Serbian flags and images of Mladic, with many arriving hours before his scheduled burial to light candles and offer tributes.
Free transport services were reportedly provided from several locations in Serbia and Bosnia to allow supporters to attend the funeral. Mladic’s coffin was displayed inside the Church of St. Luke, where relatives and supporters gathered to pay their last respects.
The former general’s wife, son and grandchildren received condolences, while six men, mainly war veterans from Serbia and Bosnia, took turns standing guard over his coffin.
Mladic remains a controversial figure across the Balkans. While he is regarded as a hero by some Serbs in Serbia and Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic, he was convicted by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia over his role in some of the worst atrocities committed during the Bosnian War.
He was found guilty of genocide linked to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where about 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed after Bosnian Serb forces captured the United Nations-protected enclave.
He was also convicted for his role in the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, a conflict in which about 10,000 people were killed.
Mladic’s death and funeral have renewed debate over the legacy of the conflicts that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The European Union’s enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, postponed a planned visit to Serbia after criticising what she described as the “glorification” of Mladic following his death, including the use of a government aircraft to return his remains to Serbia.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic rejected the criticism but did not confirm whether he would attend the funeral.
The funeral service was scheduled to be conducted by the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church before Mladic’s burial at a nearby cemetery beside his daughter, who died in 1994.
In Sarajevo, the funeral brought back painful memories for victims of the war. Some residents criticised the public tributes, recalling the suffering caused during the conflict.
Zdravka Gvozdjar, a retired pharmacist whose nine-year-old son was killed during the Sarajevo siege, said Mladic should not be celebrated because of the impact of the war on civilians.
The funeral has highlighted continuing divisions in the region over how Mladic’s role in the Bosnian War should be remembered.
