TIMELINE: What happened during the war in Bosnia?

(Reuters) - War crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic, who was arrested in Serbia on Monday, started out as defender of the Serbs in the 1992-95 Bosnian war but ended up a fugitive wanted on genocide charges.

Here is a short chronology of what happened in Bosnia:

1992:

Feb 29-March 1 - Bosnia's Muslims and Croats vote for independence in referendum boycotted by Serbs.

April 6 - European Union recognizes Bosnia's independence. War breaks out and Serbs, under the leadership of Radovan Karadzic, lay siege to capital Sarajevo. They occupy 70 percent of the country, killing and persecuting Muslims and Croats to carve out a Serb Republic.

May - U.N. sanctions imposed on Serbia for backing rebel Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia.

1993:

January - Bosnia peace efforts fail, war breaks out between Muslims and Croats, previously allied against Serbs.

April - Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde in eastern Bosnia are declared three of six U.N. "safe areas". The United Nations Protection Force UNPROFOR deploys troops and Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) attacks stop. But the town remains isolated and only a few humanitarian convoys reach it in the following two years.

1994:

March - U.S.-brokered agreement ends Muslim-Croat war and creates a Muslim-Croat federation.

1995:

March - Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic orders that Srebrenica and Zepa be entirely cut off and aid convoys be stopped from reaching the towns.

July 9 - Karadzic issues a new order to conquer Srebrenica.

July 11 - Bosnian Serbs troops, under the command of General Ratko Mladic, capture the eastern enclave and U.N. "safe area" of Srebrenica, killing about 8,000 Muslim males in the following week. The U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague indicts Karadzic and Mladic for genocide for the siege of Sarajevo.

August - NATO starts air strikes against Bosnian Serb troops.