Balkan map: After the second World War the former Yugoslav monarchy became a federal republic under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito.
It was composed of six republics: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Slovenia and Montenegro.
Two provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, also enjoyed more limited autonomy.
The strong tensions which existed between the various nationalities, and particularly between Serbs and Croats, were kept in check during Tito's lifetime.
After his death in 1980 there were fears that the federal state would not survive.
In fact it was 1991 before the crack-up began, with the declarations of independence of Slovenia and Croatia. Slovenia, being almost ethnically homogeneous, achieved its independence without much resistance from the Serbs who dominated the Yugoslav army, but Belgrade was less willing to let Croatia, with its strong Serb minority, leave the federation. Skirmishes between Serbs and Croats quickly escalated into all-out war, with the local Serb population in Croatia backed by the Yugoslav army.
In 1992 Macedonia and then Bosnia and Herzegovina also declared independence.
Fierce fighting began in Bosnia between Serbs and Bosnians and also between Croats and Bosnians.
Thousands of soldiers and civilians died in the fighting and more than a million were displaced by "ethnic cleansing". In April 1992, the Serbs began the siege of Sarajevo.
Late 1992 saw the greatest success of Serb forces, with their territory now stretching almost to the Adriatic.
In 1993 the Vance-Owen peace plan was rejected by Bosnian Serbs and the UN security council declared six "safe areas" for Bosnian Muslims at Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihac, Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde.
In 1995, 8,000 Muslim men and boys were murdered by Bosnian Serbs in the "safe area" of Srebrenica.
Various peace initiatives floundered in the following years until the eventual signing, in November 1995, of a peace accord at Dayton, Ohio.
In 1997 Slobodan Milosevic was named president of rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and in the following year he sent troops into Kosovo to fight the Kosovo Liberation Army.
After the failure of peace talks in 1999, Nato carried out its threat to bomb Serbia to force a withdrawal of its forces from the province. Serbian troops began to pull out.
In less than 10 years the federal Yugoslavia bequeathed by Tito had shrunk to the rump of Serbia and Montenegro, with many in the latter republic also anxious to seek full independence.