Markale massacres

The Markale massacres were two bombardments, with at least one of them confirmed to have been carried out by the Army of Republika Srpska, targeting civilians at the Markale (marketplace) during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War. The first occurred on 5 February 1994; 68 people were killed and 144 more were wounded by a 120-millimetre (4.7 in) mortar. The second occurred on 28 August 1995 when five mortar shells launched by Army of Republika Srpska killed 43 people and wounded 75 others. The latter attack was the alleged reason for NATO air strikes (Operation Deliberate Force) against Bosnian Serb forces that would eventually lead to the Dayton Peace Accords and the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The responsibility of the Army of the Republika Srpska for the first shelling is contested, since investigations to establish the location from where the shells had been fired led to ambiguous results. Serb forces claimed that the Bosnian army had shelled its people to provoke intervention from Western countries on their side. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in its appeal judgement of Stanislav Galić in 2006 summarized the evidence and ruled that the conclusion that the shells had been fired from a location occupied by Serb forces was a reasonable one; nevertheless, Radovan Karadžić during his trial before ICTY tried to use this claim to his defence, but was found guilty.