THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch appeals court has ruled that the government was partially liable in the deaths of some 300 Muslim men murdered by Bosnian Serb forces in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

The ruling Tuesday largely upheld a civil court's 2014 judgment that said the state was liable in the deaths of the Bosnian Muslim men who were turned over by Dutch U.N. peacekeepers to Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995 and subsequently killed.

Hague Appeals Court presiding judge Gepke Dulek says that because Dutch soldiers sent the men off the Dutch compound along with other refugees seeking shelter there, "they were deprived of the chance of survival."

The men were among around 8,000 Muslim men and boys killed by Bosnian Serb forces in Europe's worst massacre since World War II.