Chronology: What Happened During the War in Bosnia

Serbia's wartime president Karadzic masterminded the genocide of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica. (Reuters photo)

The bloody Bosnian war of 1992-1995 recalls shocking memories about genocide and mass killing perpetuated by Serbian ultranationalists against Bosnian Muslims, among which is the notorious Srebrenica massacre.

Below is a short chronology of what happened in Bosnia.

1992:

Feb 29-March 1 - Bosnia's Muslims and Croats vote for
independence in referendum boycotted by Serbs.

April 6 - European Union recognizes Bosnia's independence.
War breaks out and Serbs, under the leadership of Radovan
Karadzic, lay siege to capital Sarajevo. They occupy 70 percent
of the country, killing and persecuting Muslims and Croats to
carve out a Serb Republic.

May - U.N. sanctions imposed on Serbia for backing rebel
Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia.

1993:

Jan. - Bosnia peace efforts fail, war breaks out between
Muslims and Croats, previously allied against Serbs.

April - Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde in eastern Bosnia are
declared three of six U.N. "safe areas". The United Nations
Protection Force UNPROFOR deploys troops and Bosnian Serb Army
(VRS) attacks stop. But the town remains isolated and only a few
humanitarian convoys reach it in the following two years.

1994:

March - U.S.-brokered agreement ends Muslim-Croat war and
creates a Muslim-Croat federation.

1995:

March - Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic orders that
Srebrenica and Zepa be entirely cut off and aid convoys be
stopped from reaching the towns.

July 9 - Karadzic issues a new order to conquer Srebrenica.

July 11 - Bosnian Serbs troops, under the command of General
Ratko Mladic, capture the eastern enclave and U.N. "safe area"
of Srebrenica, killing about 8,000 Muslim males in the following
week. The U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague indicts Karadzic
and Mladic for genocide for the siege of Sarajevo.

August - NATO starts air strikes against Bosnian Serb
troops.

Nov. 21 - Following NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serbs,
Bosnian Muslim President Alija Izetbegovic, Croatian President
Franjo Tudjman and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic agree to
a U.S.-brokered peace deal in Dayton, Ohio.

Dec. 14 - The three leaders sign the Dayton peace accords in
Paris, paving the way for the arrival of a 66,000-strong NATO
peacekeeping Implementation Force (IFOR) in Bosnia. The
international community establishes a permanent presence in the
country through the office of an international peace overseer.

1996:

July - West forces Karadzic to quit as Bosnian Serb
president.

September - Nationalist parties win first post-war election,
confirming Bosnia's ethnic division.

2002:

Feb. 12 - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic goes
on trial charged with 66 counts of genocide and war crimes in
Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

2003:

Dec. - Ex-NATO commander tells the court Milosevic knew
Bosnian Serbs planned to massacre Muslims in Bosnia in 1995.

2004:

June 11 - In a belated abandonment of its endless denials
and under strong international pressure, the Bosnian Serb
government make a landmark admission -- that Serbs indeed
massacred thousands of Muslims at Srebrenica, on Karadzic's
orders.

2006:

March 11 - Milosevic is found dead in his cell in The Hague.

2008:

July 21 - Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic,
one of the world's most-wanted men for planning and ordering
genocide, is arrested.