THE HAGUE, September 8, 2008 (AFP) - A Dutch court will rule Wednesday in a bid by Bosnian Muslim survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre to hold the Netherlands state liable for its troops' failure to protect their loved ones.

In a civil suit argued before the district court in The Hague in June, the applicants claimed that United Nations Dutch battalion (Dutchbat) troops charged with protecting the enclave had handed Muslim refugees over to Bosnian Serb forces.

This action had violated several national laws and international treaties, claim the plaintiffs.

The case was initiated by Hasan Nuhanovic, who lost his parents and younger brother, 20, in the massacre, and Mehida, Damir and Alma Mustafic, the widow and children of another victim, Rizo Mustafic.

They claimed the Dutch state was liable as it exercised full command over the military.

'Dutchbat was professionally charged with the safety of civilians,' the plaintiffs' advocate Liesbeth Zegveld argued before the court in June.

'They had a humanitarian assignment, but they acted contrary to their instructions.'

Srebrenica was a UN-protected Muslim enclave until July 11, 1995, when it was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces who loaded thousands of men and boys onto trucks, executed an estimated 8,000 and threw their bodies into mass graves.

The Serbs brushed aside lightly-armed Dutch UN peacekeepers in the 'safe area' where thousands of Muslims from surrounding villages had gathered for protection.

Nuhanovic, then 27, was in 1995 employed as a translator for Dutchbat in Srebrenica. Mustafic was an electrician on the nearby Dutch base in Potocari.

Both men's families sought safety with Dutch troops, but claim they were forced to flee -- into the hands of the Bosnian Serb enemy.

The Srebrenica massacre, Europe's worst atrocity since World War II, has been termed genocide by the International Court of Justice, which handles disputes between nations, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The ICTY was set up by the UN to try war crimes committed during the Balkans conflict.

In 2002, the entire Dutch government resigned over an official report that stated its peacekeepers had been sent on an 'impossible' mission.

The UN has also admitted it failed to protect the Muslims of Srebrenica from mass murder, but none of its officials have been held responsible.

The same Dutch court ruled in a separate claim in July that survivors of the massacre could not sue the UN in the Netherlands for failing to protect their families.