Public radio and television stations broadcast alive Serbian President Boris Tadic's urgent news conference at which he confirmed Mladic's apprehension.
Bosnia-Herzegovina's Croat member of the tripartite presidency, Zeljko Komsic, was among the first ones to welcome the news.
I am extremely glad to see that Mladic will be brought to justice, Komsic said in his statement.
Komsic said that today's arrest of Mladic showed that the Serbian authorities had known all the time where fugitive Mladic was hiding just as they had also known when Radovan Karadzic had been hiding.
Mladic was captured only when the EU had resolutely demanded his arrest as condition for Serbia's further integration, he added.
The president of the Bosnian Croat-Muslim federation, Zivko Budimir, joined those who welcomed the capturing of Mladic.
A representative of the association of Bosnian Muslim former prisoners in war-time concentration camps, Murat Tahirovic, expressed hope that the 69-year-old Mladic was in good shape so that he could see the end of his prospective trial.