Planned Serb referendum vote reawakens fears of strife in Bosnia

Milorad Dodik, President of Republika Srpska is pictured on an election poster calling for votes for a referendum on their Statehood Day in Prnjavor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, September 21, 2016. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

SARAJEVO/BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - Bosnia's autonomous Serb entity is set to defy its highest court with a referendum on a national holiday on Sunday that may stoke separatist sentiment lingering since the 1990s war.

The referendum, on whether to mark Jan. 9 as "Statehood Day" in the Serb Republic part of Bosnia, will be the country's first since a 1992 plebiscite on secession from then-Yugoslavia that ignited three years of ethnic war in which 100,000 were killed.