Nine former members of the Bosnian Serb forces were arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of involvement in war crimes against the Croats and the Bosniaks in the area of the northwestern Bosnian town of Novi Grad formerly known as Bosanski Novi.

The State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) said the nine men, who all live in the area of Novi Grad, are charged with crimes against humanity.

The crimes they are charged with were committed in 1992.

The former Bosnian Serb army members are suspected of the murder of a number of persons as well as the unlawful detention and crimes against several hundred persons held in a local prison camp that was operated by the military police.

At the very start of the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serb army and police members expelled from the area of Bosanski Novi more than 20,000 local Croats and Bosniaks, while more than 500 were killed in persecution campaigns.