On this day 11 years ago, the alleged safe haven of Srebenica fell.

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What happened in the weeks after the Serb offensive have since been described as the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.

On 12 August 1995 the UN announced an investigation into reports up to 2,700 Muslim men had been shot dead with machine-guns and buried in mass graves. US aerial photographs appeared to show evidence of mass graves close to Srebrenica.

It is now thought that between 7,000 and 8,000 Muslim men were killed by Serb soldiers following the fall of Srebrenica.

Refugee accounts claimed General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander, addressed the Muslim captives and warned that 1,000 refugees would be killed for every Serb who died.

General Mladic was later indicted by the War Crimes Tribunal for genocide but is still at large. One senior Bosnian Serb, General Radislav Krstic, has been jailed for genocide for his part in the Srebrenica tragedy.

There have been a number of investigations into the massacre. In 2002 the entire Dutch government resigned after an inquiry blamed officials for giving the poorly-armed troops an impossible task to defend the enclave.

Initial findings of a commission involving the Bosnian Serbs admitted for the first time in June 2004 that Serbs had taken part in the killings.

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