Thousands of people participated this Monday in the funeral procession in Belgrade of the former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, who died on August 27 while serving a life sentence in a prison in The Hague after being convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, accompanying the coffin to the Topcider cemetery, where he was buried in the mid-afternoon.
The day began at the Church of St. Luke in Kosutnjak, where for five hours hundreds of people lined up to pay their condolences to the coffin in which the mortal remains of the military man rest, covered with the flag of Serbia and the Republika Srpska, one of the two entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Even before the opening of the temple, the surroundings were full of citizens paying improvised tributes amid Serbian flags. After the mass in honor of Mladic, thousands of people accompanied the coffin on its way to the cemetery, located on the outskirts of Belgrade, reported the Serbian agency Tanjug.
During the religious service and amid military honors, Patriarch Porfirije emphasized that the figure of Mladic “cannot be separated from a terrible era, a terrible war, great suffering, and deep wounds and traumas.”
“By praying today for the soul of the deceased, for the soul of the war general, we also pray for all those whose lives were extinguished in that war,” said the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church about Mladic, known as “the butcher of Bosnia” and convicted in 2017 of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Srebrenica massacre.
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The funeral was attended by the former general’s family but also the political leadership of Republika Srpska and a strong representation of members of the Serbian government.
Among them were seen the president of Republika Srpska, Sinisa Karan, as well as the entity’s prime minister, Savo Minic, and the Bosnian Serb representative of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Zeljka Cvijanovic.
On Serbia’s side, the Minister of Justice, Nenad Vujic, the Minister of Defense, Bratislav Gasic, and the Minister of Culture, Nikola Selakovic, were present, as well as local politicians and the Russian ambassador in Belgrade, Aleksandar Bocan-Harcenko.
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