Ravnice is a primary mass grave, located 20 kilometres north-west of the town of Srebrenica. It is six kilometres from an agricultural warehouse in Kravica where more than 1,300 Bosniaks from Srebrenica were executed by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995. According to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, there were no signs that the gravesite was disturbed or that bodies were moved on purpose.
In August 2000, the ICTY exhumation team initially discovered 34 bodies at the site called Ravnice 1. The rest of the exhumation process continued from July and August 2001, where 172 more bodies were exhumed. This part of the exhumation was done by the Bosnian Missing Persons Commission while the ICTY monitored the process. The second exhumation at the same location was named Ravnice 2. However, Ravnice 1 and 2 are considered to be one mass grave, from which a total of 258 human remains were exhumed.
Most of the remains were discovered on the surface of the steep sloping ground at the site and the bodies were reduced to skeletons as they had been exposed for more than five years to the atmosphere and to the attention of animals. Some bodies were covered with earth, while others were not and had rolled down the slope until they were stopped by trees and fences.
During the exhumation of Ravnice 1 and 2, materials such as concrete, plaster and other building material were found within the grave. These were considered to bе indistinguishable from materials found at the Kravica warehouse execution site and the Glogova 1 and Glogova 2 mass graves, as well as the secondary mass graves at Zeleni Jadar 5 and 6. Of particular interest was а dual-coloured piece of painted polystyrene foam found at Ravnice 2. This piece of foam was identical to foam lettering on the northern face of the Кravica warehouse above an entrance doorway.
The ages of the victims at Ravnice potentially ranged from eight to 90 years old at the time of their deaths. All of them had been shot, often multiple times. There was evidence of at least 700 shots having been fired.
All of the bodies were male and wore civilian clothing. Fourteen of them were 17 years of age or younger.
The Ravnice site remains unmarked on a steep slope next to the road in the woods. Since then, the warehouse at Kravica has changed little, although access to it is not allowed as it is now privately owned.
From July 12 to 13, 1995 around 5,000 Bosniak men from Srebrenica were captured by the Bosnian Serb Army. On July 13, more than 1,300 Bosniaks were transported to the Kravica warehouse, where they were executed with automatic rifles and hand grenades. Between July 14 and 16, heavy equipment arrived and removed the victims’ bodies to two large mass graves in the nearby villages of Glogova and Ravnice.
Nedeljko Milidragovic, Aleksa Golijanin, Milivoje Batinica, Aleksandar Dacevic, Bora Miletic, Jovan Petrovic, Dragomir Parovic and Vidosav Vasic are accused of organising and participating in the shooting of more than 1,300 civilians in the warehouse. The Serbian prosecution charged them in 2015 and the trial opened in February 2017, but proceedings have been plagued by delays.
So far, the ICTY and domestic courts in the Balkans have sentenced a total of 47 people to more than 700 years in prison, plus five life sentences, for Srebrenica crimes.