Bosnia was once

part of the

former Yugoslav

ia.

During the Cold War, Yugoslavia

was ruled by the

communistdictator, Tito.

Yugoslavia had been formedin 1918 after World War I.It was reformed after theSecond World War. Butby the early 1990s, it wasfalling apart.

By 1992, Bosnia had declaredits independence from Yugoslavia.

While the majority of Bosnianswere Muslims, there was aSerbian Christian minority.

The Serbs in Bosnia wanted to form a greater Serbia and

turned to the Serbian President

of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic,

who ordered an attacks onMuslim civilians.

A program of “ethnic cleansing”began as over 200,000 BosnianMuslims were killed.

Eventually, NATO peacekeepingtroops arrived in 1995 and by2000, Milosevic was ousted frompower and turned over to a UNwar crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Milosevic was charged withgenocide but died in the detention center before thetrial concluded.

But genocide was not confined toBosnia. Between April and Juneof 1994, over 800,000 Rwandanswere killed when the President’splane was shot down.

The President was a memberof the Hutu ethnic group. Hutusaccused Tutsis, a different ethnicgroup, of the killing.

Hutus began killing Tutsis. Many innocent peoplewere killed.

Eventually, a Tutsi rebel grouptook over the government andthe Hutu leaders fled.

In the Sudan, the governmentwas accused of favoring theArab pastoralists over the black African farmers.

When rebel groups attacked,the government respondedwith violence.

The Janjaweed, gunmen onhorseback, have been accusedof trying to “cleanse” blackAfricans from Darfur in westernSudan.

Many Africans have been killedin Darfur. In Darfur, BlackAfricans are either Christianor practice traditional religions.Arabs practice Islam.

Religious and ethnic conflictscontinue to plague the worldand sadly, genocide sometimes occur.