Vukovar massacre
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The Vukovar massacre was an incident that took place between November 18 and November 21, 1991 near the city of Vukovar, a mixed Croat/Serb community in northeastern Croatia. Around 260 local Croats and other non-Serbs were murdered by members of Serb paramilitary units as well as Yugoslav officers. Local Serb authorities Veselin Šljivančanin, Mile Mrkšić and Miroslav Radić have been indicted for their role in orchestrating the massacre and are currently facing trial at the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Following the siege of Vukovar, Serb forces took effective control over the city. Refugees gathered at the city's hospital with the promise that they would be safely evacuated by the Yugoslav People's Army following an agreement reached together with the Croatian government.
The authorities did not carry out the deal. These evacuees were taken to a farm in nearby Ovčara. Many were beaten, until they were taken to a wooden ravine away from the town. The soldiers then killed the prisoners, and used a bulldozer to bury the bodies in a mass grave.
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[edit] Ovčara
Ovčara is a location near Vukovar, Croatia, where around two hundred prisoners from the Vukovar hospital were massacred by Serbian forces on November 20, 1991. Ovčara was also a Serbian transit camp for Croatian prisoners from October to December 1991.
[edit] Prison camp
Ovčara is located 5 kilometers southeast of the city of Vukovar in Croatia. It is a desolate stretch of land where the Vukovar agricultural conglomerate built cattle-raising facilities after WWII.
These facilities are storage hangars, which are fenced and can be easily guarded. The hangars are made of brick and have a big sliding front door, which includes a small door. The Serbian forces turned Ovčara into a prison camp in early October 1991. Aside from the massacre, three or four thousand prisoners were temporarily held in the camp before being transported to the prison in Sremska Mitrovica or to the local army barracks, which was the transit point for the Serbian concentration camps Stajićevo, Begejci and others.
The archive of the City Government of Vukovar has some testimonies of Ovčara prisoners. When they came out of the buses, they had to run between two rows of Serbian soldiers and other forces, who beat them with rifle butts, clubs and other instruments. The beatings continued in the hangars; at least one person died from those beatings.
Ovčara was closed on December 25, 1991. Its total count was around 200 killed and 61 missing prisoners.
[edit] Massacre
On November 18, 1991, which was the day when the battle of Vukovar ended, the Serbian forces captured the Vukovar hospital. They gathered the wounded combatants, civilians and hospital staff, put them in buses and transported them to Ovčara. The prisoners were brought together, executed by firearms, thrown in a trench and covered by earth.
The Ovčara mass grave lies northeast from the facilities, one kilometer from the Ovčara-Grabovo road. It belongs to the category of the mass graves with the remains of prisoners of war and civilians executed in the immediate vicinity or at the very place of the grave.
Pursuant to the Act for Marking Mass Graves from the Croatian War of Independence, passed by the Croatian Parliament in 1996, the Ovčara Monument was the first such monument. It was made by Slavomir Drinković and uncovered on December 29, 1998. It is a grey obelisk with a sculpted dove and the inscription:
- In remembrance of 200 wounded Croatian defenders and civilians from the Vukovar hospital who were executed in the Greater Serbian aggression against the Republic of Croatia.
Ovčara is the biggest mass grave in post-war Europe. Aside from it, two other mass graves have been found in the wider area of Vukovar: the New Graveyard and the Sloga Stadium.
Among the dead was a French national.[1]
[edit] Aftermath
Exhumation started on September 1, 1996, and lasted 40 days. 200 bodies were found, of which 163 were identified to date. Slavko Dokmanović, president of the Vukovar Municipality from 1990 to mid-1996, committed suicide in Hague on June 29, 1998, while awaiting trial together with Šljivančanin, Mrkšić and Radić.
In Serbia and Montenegro on December 4, 2003, the Prosecution for War Crimes indicted Miroljub Vujović and associates for the criminal act of war crime against prisoners of war. Two more indictments for the same criminal act were published: against Milan Lazunčanin and associates on May 24, 2004, and against Predrag Dragović and associates on May 25, 2004. All these indictments have been merged in one case.
The bill of indictment says that the accused, as members of the Territorial Defense of Vukovar which was part of the Yugoslav People's Army, or as members of the volunteer corps called Leva supoderica, organized and ordered murders and inhuman acts against the imprisoned members of armed forces and other persons included in armed forces or following armed forces, and took the life of 192 persons and buried them, at the agricultural property in Ovčara near Vukovar, on November 20-21, 1991 (from the afternoon to the early morning).
[edit] Sources
In English:
In Croatian:
- Tourist board of the Vukovar-Srijem County
- Croatian Association of Prisoners of Serbian Concentration Camps
[edit] References
- "Croatia massacre trial under way", BBC News, 11 October 2005
- ICTY Indictment
- "Vukovar massacre: What happened", BBC News, 13 June 2003
- Documentary 52': Vukovar,the City of Lost Souls
