Netherlands dispatches 160 peacekeeping troops to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A statement issued Thursday said that the Netherlands will deploy 160 soldiers to Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of the European Union peacekeeping mission (EUFOR Althea) in the country.

A joint statement from the Dutch Ministry of Defense and Foreign Affairs said that 150 soldiers will be sent to Eufor Althea in October, and 10 soldiers will go to gather intelligence in the area in June.

Soldiers are expected to serve for a year, while intelligence officers are expected to stay for two years.

The decision came from the Council of Ministers under the pretext that Russia and China are trying to increase their influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The statement added that the importance of Aleufor Althea has increased several times since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Operation Althea, officially EUFOR, is a military deployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina that was created in 2004 to oversee the military implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement and ensure security in the country.

Last year, the Netherlands expressed its “deepest apology” to the people of Srebrenica, on the 27th anniversary of the worst genocide since World War II, accepting responsibility for the failure of Dutch peacekeepers to intervene for the first time since the massacre.

Dutch Defense Minister Kasja Olongren said during a ceremony in Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Balkan Wars broke out in the 1990s as Yugoslavia disintegrated, eventually splitting into about six new nations. Some of the worst battles were in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where ethnic Serb forces fought with Muslim and ethnic Croat forces for control of territory.

In the summer of 1995, Dutch forces under the command of the United Nations were supposed to defend the population of the Muslim-majority city of Srebrenica, but they offered no resistance on July 11 of that year when ethnic Serb forces led by Ratko Mladic stormed the city. .

About 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by ethnic Serb forces, in what is widely considered the worst incident of genocide in Europe since the end of World War II.