The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related [9] [10] [11] ethnic conflicts , wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place from to [A 2] in what had been the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia SFR Yugoslavia.
The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia , which began in mid, into six independent countries matching the six entities known as republics that had previously constituted Yugoslavia: Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Montenegro , Serbia , and Macedonia now called North Macedonia. SFR Yugoslavia's constituent republics declared independence due to unresolved tensions between ethnic minorities in the new countries, which fuelled the wars.
While most of the conflicts ended through peace accords that involved full international recognition of new states, they resulted in a massive number of deaths as well as severe economic damage to the region. During the initial stages of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav People's Army JNA sought to preserve the unity of the Yugoslav nation by eradicating all republic governments.
Often described as one of Europe's deadliest armed conflicts since World War II , the Yugoslav Wars were marked by many war crimes , including genocide , crimes against humanity , ethnic cleansing , massacres , and mass wartime rape. The Bosnian genocide was the first European wartime event to be formally classified as genocidal in character since the military campaigns of Nazi Germany , and many of the key individuals who perpetrated it were subsequently charged with war crimes; [25] the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ICTY was established by the UN in The Hague, Netherlands , to prosecute all individuals who had committed war crimes during the conflicts.
The state of Yugoslavia was created in the aftermath of World War I , and its population was mostly composed of South Slavic Christians , though the nation also had a substantial Muslim minority.
