A doctor told the Hague trial of Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic how his hospital in besieged Sarajevo took direct hits from artillery fire.
Sarajevo doctor Milan Mandilovic recalled the desperate conditions in which he had treat wounded citizens during the 1990s war as his hospital came under attack from grenades and gunfire.
“Dozens of wounded citizens, most often from grenade shrapnel, were brought to the hospital daily, and due to the constant shelling, the patients were operated on in the basement,” said Mandilovic.
In a written deposition, which the prosecutors entered into evidence against Mladic, Mandilovic testified that conditions at the state hospital were made even more difficult by “shortages of water, food, medicine and oxygen” as well as power cuts.
A former Yugoslav Army major, Mandilovic stayed behind to work at the hospital after the army withdrew from Bosnia and Herzegovina in May 1992.
He said that he treated around 40 civilians wounded by shrapnel in an attack on Sarajevo’s Markale market on August 28, 1995.
According to the indictment against Mladic, a mortar shell fired from Bosnian Serb positions killed 43 people and wounded 75 more at the market.
Mladic is charged with terrorising civilians in Sarajevo with long-campaigns of shelling and sniper fire, as well as with genocide in Srebrenica, the expulsion of Muslims and Croats across Bosnia, and taking international peacekeepers hostage.
In July 1995 Srebrenica was shelled and occupied by the Army of Republic of Srpska,VRS, despite being declared a protected area by the United Nations. More than 7,000 people were killed, the victims of genocide.
Key dates and events in the Bosnia war.
The Bosnian Serb commander’s role in the genocide committed in Srebrenica is described in detail in many indictments and verdicts pronounced before local and international judicial institutions.