The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia, which began in mid-1991, 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. 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.
Clockwise from top-left: Officers of the Slovenian National Police Force escort captured soldiers of the Yugoslav People's Army back to their unit during the Slovenian War of Independence; a destroyed M-84 during the Battle of Vukovar; anti-tank missile installations of the Serbia-controlled Yugoslav People's Army during the siege of Dubrovnik; reburial of victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in 2010; an armoured vehicle of the United Nations Protection Force during the
Ambushed JNA tanks near Nova Gorica, on the border with Italy
Damage after the bombing of Dubrovnik.
A JNA M-84 tank disabled by a mine laid by Croat soldiers in Vukovar, November 1991
An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's position within society. This criterion differentiates ethnic conflict from other forms of struggle.
"Чеченская молитва" (Chechen's prayer) by Mikhail Evstafiev depicts a Chechen man praying during the battle of Grozny in 1995.
A refugee camp for displaced Rwandans in Zaire following the Rwandan genocide of 1994