Overview
- RTS and international agencies reported that Ratko Mladic died in the United Nations detention unit in The Hague, a development announced on Thursday, August 27, 2026.
- Mladic was serving a life sentence handed down in 2017 for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, a verdict confirmed on appeal in 2021.
- He had been seriously ill for months and his family and the Serbian government had asked to transfer him to a military hospital in Belgrade, a request the UN Residual Mechanism rejected days before his death.
- Mladic's conviction includes responsibility for the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, where roughly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed, and his case is central to international justice for the 1992–1995 Bosnian war.
- His death is likely to deepen divisions in the region as some Serb nationalists continue to lionize him, and authorities, victims' groups and international bodies will now confront questions about detained war criminals, medical care in UN custody and the broader path toward reconciliation.