Irma Hadzimuratovic

Every war has its human symbol of suffering. Bosnia’s was Irma Hadzimuratovic, 5, right, a girl from Sarajevo severely injured in 1993 by a Serb mortar that killed her mother. She was taken to a Sarajevo hospital, where, deprived of supplies, doctors could do virtually nothing. Irma was eventually evacuated to Great Ormond Street Hospital. She was paralysed from the neck down and was fed intravenously but learnt English at the hospital school. She died of a blood infection in 1995.

Colonel Bob Stewart

The first commander of British UN forces in Bosnia took a robust approach to his mission. While UN officials in Sarajevo agonised over the nuances of their mandate, Britbat, based in Vitez, central Bosnia, got on with ensuring that relief supplies reached the warzone. In the spring of 1993, when the conflict between Bosnian Croats and Muslims erupted, Britbat troops were out rescuing trapped civilians and returning fire when shot at. On April 16, 1993, Colonel Stewart was investigating reports of a massacre at the village of Ahmici. He was stopped by HVO (Bosnian Croat) soldiers asking if he had permission to enter. His reply has gone down in history: “I don’t need the permission of the bloody HVO. I’m from the United Nations.” He smashed through the barricade into a scene of horror: the HVO had killed more than 100 civilians, including women and children. He was awarded the DSO and left the Army in 1995. He works in corporate communications.

Arkan

Zeljko Raznatovic, better known as Arkan, was the most notorious paramilitary leader of the Yugoslav wars. Born in Slovenia in 1952, he was a career criminal from an early age. He recruited Belgrade football fans to form his Tigers militia, which carried out much of the murder and “ethnic cleansing”. He reported directly to the Serbian secret service, which gave him weapons, funds and bases. In January 2001 Arkan was shot dead in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel, Belgrade.

Yasushi Akashi

Political chief of Unprofor, the UN mission, Mr Akashi was not a well-known figure but was immensely important. With Nato he held the “dual key”, authorising airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs. Mr Akashi was obsessed with preserving the UN’s neutrality. In May 1995 he refused a request by General Rupert Smith, the British UN commander, for airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs after they shelled Sarajevo. He left the UN in 1997. He is chairman of the Japan Centre for Conflict Prevention.

Slobodan Milosevic

As President of Serbia and then of the rump Yugoslavia, Milosevic was the key figure in the destruction of Tito’s multinational federation. He was overthrown in October 2000 and sent to The Hague, where he faced charges of war crimes and genocide. He died in his cell in March 2006.

Franjo Tudjman

Croatia’s first President after independence was declared in 1991. A jowly, authoritarian nationalist, Tudjman once told an election rally that he thanked God his wife was neither a Serb nor a Jew. In March 1991, after fighting had erupted in Croatia, Tudjman and Milosevic met secretly to discuss the partition of Bosnia. He died in 1999 but would have been charged with war crimes had he lived.

Richard Holbrooke

President Clinton’s envoy to Yugoslavia, he brokered the 1995 Dayton peace accords that divided Bosnia into two entities, Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. Critics said that it rewarded the Bosnian Serbs for “ethnic cleansing”. Later he was US Ambassador to the UN. He works at a merchant bank in New York.

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