Survivors of the Srebrenica massacre said the 40-year prison term handed down on Thursday to Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic for war crimes and genocide was not tough enough and came too late.

"I am so disappointed," said Bida Smajlovic, 64, who watched a live broadcast of the verdict with her two sisters-in-law in Potocari, a Srebrenica suburb where the three women saw their husbands for the last time 21 years ago.

"We have been in shock ever since the first gunshot and this is yet another one," she added.