Belgrade residents mourn Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic

Belgrade residents on Thursday voiced sorrow and admiration following the death of Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander who was serving a life sentence for war crimes.

Mladic died in a UN prison hospital in The Hague, according to UN court officials. A family member, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the reports and said Mladic's son, Darko, was traveling to The Hague.

In Belgrade, some residents remembered Mladic as a patriot. Zoran Hadzic, wearing a T-shirt that read "Serbian hero," said, "To me he is a hero and I mean what I said." Another resident, Gordana Obradovic, said, "I feel really sorry. My opinion is that he fought for Serbian people wherever they were." Dusko Joksimovic added, "He fought for Serbia. Not only for Serbia, he fought for the Republic of Srpska and people who live in Republic of Srpska."

Mladic, a former communist officer turned nationalist, commanded Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. His troops laid siege to Sarajevo, ran concentration camps, and in 1995 killed more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica — the only genocide in Europe since World War II. The UN tribunal for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia sentenced him to life in prison in 2017. He had been in custody since 2011 after years on the run.

The conflict he helped drive left more than 100,000 dead and over a million homeless. Despite the convictions, Mladic and his admirers never expressed regret.