Following the Serb takeover of Srebrenica town on 18 April 1992 by the Yugoslav People 's Army and local Serb militia , most of the Bosniak population was forcibly expelled from the town . Many fled to the surrounding area . In the words of the ICTY judgement : " Once towns and villages were securely in their hands , the Serb forces – the military , the police , the paramilitaries and , sometimes , even Serb villagers – applied the same pattern : Muslim houses and apartments were systematically ransacked or burnt down , Muslim villagers were rounded up or captured , and sometimes beaten or killed in the process . Men and women were separated , with many of the men detained in the former KP Dom prison . " In 1992 , Bosniak villages around Srebrenica were under constant attacks by Serb forces . According to the Naser Oric trial judgement : " Between April 1992 and March 1993 , Srebrenica town and the villages in the area held by Bosnian Muslims were constantly subjected to Serb military assaults , including artillery attacks , sniper fire , as well as occasional bombing from aircraft . Each onslaught followed a similar pattern . Serb soldiers and paramilitaries surrounded a Bosnian Muslim village or hamlet , called upon the population to surrender their weapons , and then began with indiscriminate shelling and shooting . In most cases , they then entered the village or hamlet , expelled or killed the population , who offered no significant resistance , and destroyed their homes . Meanwhile , in a number of villages around Srebrenica the Bosniak population began to organize local resistance groups . Orić led one such group . At the start , he found few supporters and his small group of militiamen only had hunting rifles and automatic rifles from the police armory in Srebrenica . On 6 May , Bosniak forces under Naser Orić carried out their first attack on a village , Gniona , to the north of the town of Srebrenica in which some Serb civilian were massacred ( Oric was later indicted by ICTY ) . A leader of the Serb Democratic Party in Srebrenica , Goran Zekic , was killed in an ambush on 8 May . Soon thereafter Serb paramilitaries began to flee Srebrenica or were driven out by Bosniak forces . Bosniak forces under Orić and other Bosniak commanders took control of Srebrenica on 9 May and started harassment and torturing remaining Serb civilian population , following by ethnic cleansing . Almost none of the Serbs , who lived in Srebrenica before the war , stayed in the town . Bosnian Serb forces committed a massacre in the village of Glogova on 9 May and in Bratunac on 10 May through 13 May . In the following days , Bosniaks who had been hiding in the woods emerged and gradually returned to their houses in Srebrenica . Serb forces surrounded Srebrenica and started to bomb the town
massacre in the village of Glogova
Glogova massacre
Naser Orić