A Dutch court has ruled that the Netherlands was liable for the killings of more than 300 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war in July 1995.
It said that Dutch peacekeepers had failed to protect the Bosniaks when the town fell to the besieging Bosnian Serb army. More than 7,000 were killed.
Bosniaks who had taken refuge with the Dutch were handed over to the Serbs.
Srebrenica is considered Europe's worst massacre since World War Two.
Last year, a Dutch court ruled that the Netherlands was liable for the deaths of three Bosniak men at Srebrenica.
CompensationIn the latest ruling, launched by relatives of the victims under the name "Mothers of Srebrenica", the court said that Dutch peacekeeping forces, Dutchbat, did not do enough to protect 300 of the Bosniaks and should have been aware of the potential for genocide to be committed.
It said that the Dutch state must accept some degree of responsibility for what happened and pay compensation to the families of the 300 victims.
The BBC's Anna Holligan, in the courtroom, says it was a hugely significant ruling but a heart-breaking verdict for the women because the Dutch state was only found partly responsible for the deaths of 300 of the more than 7,000 men killed.
This, she continues, means many of the relatives of the victims will not be entitled to compensation.
During the 1992-1995 war, Bosniaks from the surrounding area sought refuge in the town of Srebrenica as the Bosnian Serb army carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing, expelling non-Serb populations.
The UN declared Srebrenica a "safe area" for civilians in 1993. It fell in July 1995, after more than two years under siege.
Thousands of Bosniaks went to the UN base just outside Srebrenica at Potocari, where the Dutch peacekeepers were stationed.
However, the Dutch soldiers told them they would be safe and handed them over to the Bosnian Serb army.
While the women and young children were transported to a Bosniak-majority area, more than 7,000 men and boys were taken away from the UN base by the Bosnian Serbs, and killed.
Many of their remains still lie in mass graves around eastern Bosnia.
The two key figures of the wartime Bosnian Serb leadership - one-time President Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic - are on trial for war crimes at the UN tribunal in The Hague.
Continue reading the main storyThe former Yugoslavia was a Socialist state created after German occupation in World War II and a bitter civil war. A federation of six republics, it brought together Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Slovenes and others under a comparatively relaxed communist regime. Tensions between these groups were successfully suppressed under the leadership of President Tito.
After Tito's death in 1980, tensions re-emerged. Calls for more autonomy within Yugoslavia by nationalist groups led in 1991 to declarations of independence in Croatia and Slovenia. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav army lashed out, first in Slovenia and then in Croatia. Thousands were killed in the latter conflict which was paused in 1992 under a UN-monitored ceasefire.
Bosnia, with a complex mix of Serbs, Muslims and Croats, was next to try for independence. Bosnia's Serbs, backed by Serbs elsewhere in Yugoslavia, resisted. Under leader Radovan Karadzic, they threatened bloodshed if Bosnia's Muslims and Croats - who outnumbered Serbs - broke away. Despite European blessing for the move in a 1992 referendum, war came fast.
Yugoslav army units, withdrawn from Croatia and renamed the Bosnian Serb Army, carved out a huge swathe of Serb-dominated territory. Over a million Bosnian Muslims and Croats were driven from their homes in ethnic cleansing. Serbs suffered too. The capital Sarajevo was besieged and shelled. UN peacekeepers, brought in to quell the fighting, were seen as ineffective.
International peace efforts to stop the war failed, the UN was humiliated and over 100,000 died. The war ended in 1995 after NATO bombed the Bosnian Serbs and Muslim and Croat armies made gains on the ground. A US-brokered peace divided Bosnia into two self-governing entities, a Bosnian Serb republic and a Muslim-Croat federation lightly bound by a central government.
In August 1995 the Croatian army stormed areas in Croatia under Serb control prompting thousands to flee. Soon Croatia and Bosnia were fully independent. Slovenia and Macedonia had already gone. Montenegro left later. In 1999 Kosovo's ethnic Albanians fought Serbs in another brutal war to gain independence. Serbia ended the conflict beaten, battered and alone.
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How are you affected by the ruling? Were you in Srebrenica during the war? You can email your experiences to haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk, using the subject line 'Srebrenica'.
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