The ruthless, blue-eyed “Butcher of Bosnia” who oversaw a wave of “ethnic cleansing” in the 1990s, has died in prison while serving a life sentence for genocide.

Bosnian Serb general ‌Ratko Mladic was jailed for his role in the 1992-95 war in Bosnia that left more than 100,000 people dead and a million homeless.

The 84-year-old former general was one of the most notorious figures of the ethnic conflict, becoming commander of the Bosnian Serb troops.

He oversaw a brutal campaign of “ethnic cleansing” with the massacre of at least 8000 Muslims — the worst such atrocity in Europe since World War II.

The BBC writes that Mladic pursued his goal with “single-minded determination and studied brutality”.

“His fanaticism made him a hero to his people. He told them their Muslim neighbours planned to ‘impale Serbs, burn them alive, crucify them and put out their eyes’,” the broadcaster wrote.

Mladic took control of large swaths of the country to form a Serb mini-state. Serbian forces under his control laid siege to the capital Sarajevo and other cities and villages, established camps for detained non-Serb civilians and enemy soldiers and systematically killed prisoners.

Mladic ​had ​been in the ‌United Nations detention centre since his arrest in 2011. He had been ​in ill ‌health in recent years and was hospitalised repeatedly.

The media reports said that Mladic died in a UN prison hospital in The Hague, Netherlands.

A family member of Mladic, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, confirmed the reports and said Mladic’s son Darko was on the way to the Hague.

The UN tribunal for war crimes committed during the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s sentenced Mladic to life in prison in 2017 in what was considered a key step toward bringing justice to the victims.

He had been in custody since 2011 after many years on the run.

-with AAP/Reuters