Day of Remembering the Victims of Croatia War of Independence and Day of Remembering Victims of Vukovar and Skabrnja

Holy Cross at Ovcara Farm, Vukovar, Croatia
Holy Cross at Ovcara Farm, Vukovar, Croatia adorned with rosary beads from pilgrims and mourners

November 18 the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Homeland War and the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Vukovar and Škabrnja.

When Croatia formally declared independence on 25 June 1991, its Serb minority openly renounced the authority of the newly proclaimed state. In August 1990, the rebellion started, and in 1991, backed by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav People’s Army (YPA/Jugoslavenska narodna armija/JNA) and Serbian authorities, the insurgents declared an independent Serbian state covering one-third of Croatia’s territory, intending to carry out systematic ethnic cleansing of Croats and other non-Serbian populations. From mid-1991, almost the entire territory of the Republic of Croatia was affected by heavy fighting, ethnic cleansing of Croats from the Serb-occupied areas, torture, rape, destruction…

The city of Vukovar today, 18 November 2022, marks 31 years since the collapse of the city’s heroic defence and the aggression of the former Yugoslav National Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitaries, in which some 3,000 Croatian veterans and civilians were killed and went missing, and the city was almost razed to the ground.

The city of Vukovar, on the Danube, was under siege for 87 days, and the battle for Vukovar ended on November 18, 1991, with its occupation which lasted until January 15, 1998 and the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Eastern Slavonia and Western Syrmia and Baranja area ended the Serb occupation in the region. Ethnic cleansing of Croats and non-Serbs from the region meant that many were tortured, killed or turned into refugees and displaced masses. After the Peaceful Reintegration of the region, which regretfully gave hundreds of Serbs who fled to Serbia in fear of retribution for their heinous crimes amnesty against being prosecuted for war crimes, the Vukovar Croats and other people finally began returning to their home city to build life anew among the ruins and devastation.

Although fighting and clashes in and around Vukovar began earlier, e.g. Borovo village on the outskirts of Vukovar that saw a massacre of twelve Croatian policemen by local rebel Serbs, August 25, 1991 is usually cited as the date of the start of the Battle for Vukovar when the JNA and Serb paramilitaries launched a general tank-infantry attack with the intention of capturing the city in a week at most. However, the Croatian defenders, although numerically ten times weaker in terms of weapons, managed to last almost three months. Their defence was weakened and obstructed severely by the UN Arms Embargo and the Yugoslav Army was considered to be the third largest in Europe. Began ethnic cleansing of Croats from Vukovar, hundreds of Croatian civilians and defence volunteer men forcefully taken to concentration camps and prisons within Serbia – such as Begejci, Sremska Mitrovica and Stajicevo –  and later Serbs opening new concentration camps near Vukovar (e.g. Velepromet and Ovcara) where torture, rape and murder were daily horrors endured. The residents that still remained in Vukovar were without electricity and an orderly supply of water and food as a full-blown attack saw hundreds of projectiles fell on the city every day with tank and air attacks.

Hence, the Yugoslav People’s Army, aided by Serb Territorial forces and paramilitaries from Serbia, launched a full-blown attack on Vukovar in eastern Croatia on August 25, 1991, beginning a siege that would last for 87 days and leave thousands of Croat soldiers and civilians dead before the town’s Croatian defenders had to surrender.

The Vukovar hospital suffered extensive damage from Serb shelling despite the International Red Cross visibly painted on its roof, and the treating of the wounded was provided in impossible conditions in the hospital basement. On October 19, 1991, a humanitarian convoy of Doctors Without Borders managed to enter the besieged city of Vukovar, rescuing about a hundred wounded veterans from the hospital.

Vukovar was defended by about 1,800 Croatian defenders, including many volunteers from all over Croatia and from the diaspora as well as foreigners from countries like France, Germany, Ireland and on the opposite side were about 30,000 enemy soldiers, aided by more than 600 tanks, hundreds of mortars and cannons, and the air force.

The heroic Croatian resistance was broken on November 18, 1991. Part of the Croatian defenders tried to get out of the city in breakthroughs. Those who remained were taken to Serb concentration camps, and many were killed. On November 19, the Yugoslav army evacuated the wounded, veterans, and civilians from the Vukovar hospital, who were killed on the night of November 20-21 at the nearby Ovčara farm. 200 victims were exhumed from the mass grave in Ovčara, the youngest of whom was 16 years old, and the oldest 84 years old. Subsequent forensic investigation of a mass grave at Ovčara farm of victims killed by the Serbian army in 1991 showed that 198 male and 2 female bodies (one of a pregnant woman) in civilian clothes were exhumated from the site. The determined manner of death for all 200 exhumed bodies was homicide, and the cause of death for 95% of the victims was a gunshot wound to a vital part of the body, in 67% of cases to the head. Traces of medical treatment and hospital workwear were found on 53% of the victims.

About 22,000 Croats and other non-Serbs were expelled, ethnically cleansed, from the city.

On October 29, 1999, the Croatian Parliament passed a decision to proclaim the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Vukovar in 1991 in order to pay tribute with dignity and appropriateness to all participants in the defence of that city – the symbol of Croatian freedom. By the decision of the Government from 2019, November 18 was declared a holiday and a non-working day and is marked as the Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Homeland War and the Day of Remembrance for the victims of Vukovar and Skabrnja.

The Škabrnja massacre (Škabrnja), also known as Skabrnja and Nadin massacre, was a war crime perpetrated by Serb Army forces during the Croatian War of Independence. On November 18, 1991, Serb paramilitaries, supported by the Yugoslav People’s Army/JNA, captured the village of Skabrnja, some 25 kilometres east of the coastal city of Zadar, and murdered, massacred, 62 civilians and 5 prisoners of war. The massacre occurred shortly after an agreement to evacuate Zadar’s YPA/JNA garrison following an increase in fighting between the Croatian National Guard and the Yugoslav People’s Army. Most of the killings were committed by the Self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina troops which followed the leading armoured Yugoslav Army units fighting their way into Skabrnja on 18 November. During the initial attack, the attacking force employed a human shield of captured Croatian civilians forced to walk in front of armoured vehicles. Most of the civilian population fled the village and about 120–130 were captured by the Yugoslav Army and detained in the village school and kindergarten. However, others who took shelter in basements were killed in or just outside their homes. A portion of those killed in the massacre were buried in a mass grave in Skabrnja, while dozens of bodies were turned over to Croatian authorities.

Afterwards several Croatians also died there when stepping on landmines left by Serbs. In total, 86 people were killed, mostly the women, or the elderly during the war in Skabrnja village. Skabrnja and Nadin were ethnically cleansed of its Croatian and other non-Serb population and annexed to the Self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina, remaining there until the Croatian forces reintegrated them back in 1995 with the swift, heroic, and determined military operation “Storm”.

To recapture, thirty-one years ago, on 18 November 1991, after three months of siege, the almost completely destroyed Vukovar was occupied by attacking Yugoslav People’s Army and Serbian rebels. On the same day, about 300 kilometres south-west of Vukovar, 62 civilians and 5 prisoners of war, mostly of Croatian nationality, were killed in a massacre in the small villages of Skabrnja and nearby Nadin. These two tragic events marked November 18 as the saddest moment of recent Croatian history that captures the horror and terror that Croats endured just because they wanted to secede from communist Yugoslavia and become an independent democratic state. The tragedies in Vukovar and Skabrnja have become symbols of suffering and will forever remind future generations of the victims who gave their lives for a free and independent Croatia. Lest Te Forget! Ina Vukic

Croatia: Vicariously Reliving 1990’s Nightmares Through Ukraine’s Suffering of Today

With the brutal Russian attack against Ukraine many Croatians are reliving their own nightmares from early 1990’s. Serb and Yugoslav Army brutal attacks and senseless destruction against Croatia followed a similar pattern as is occurring now in Ukraine. God save the Ukrainian people from such bestial cruelty.

So, in Croatia it was in simple words like this: rebel Serbs living in Croatia who did not want Croatian independence from communist Yugoslavia decided to take over around 25% of Croatian territory known as Krajina, declaring it Serbian Republic of Krajina. The so-called Log revolution on that territory of Croatia is probably one of the most consistent events in contemporary Croatian history. This common colloquial name implies the beginning of the armed uprising of a part of Croatian Serbs, which took place on August 17, 1990, by blocking a part of the roads around Knin and Benkovac. Just as Russia has come to “aid” the Donetsk and Luhansk separatist republics in Ukraine, Serbia and Communist Yugoslavia Army forced their way into Croatia’s territory in their intent to preserve communist Yugoslavia and/or the creation of Greater Serbia state that would include areas of Croatia (and Bosnia and Herzegovina).

The war in Croatia was brutal but it was victorious for Croatia that fought as David in the proverbial David and Goliath War, as what Ukraine is fighting at this moment. But the European Union and the rest of the free world had punished Croatia for wanting to secede from communist Yugoslavia and imposed arms embargo! Ukraine appears to be receiving more aid than what it may need, and God bless today’s world for standing up for Ukraine and its sovereignty. It suited, I guess, the EU and the free world for whatever political agenda to label the attack against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina as a civil war even though it was not. Such political treachery somehow justified in their own eyes the arms embargo against Croatia, to disable it from successful defence of its people’s lives. And then, when Croatia together with the massive financial and material help from its diaspora managed to defend itself and secure a magnificent victory over its attackers, suddenly as far as EU and the rest of the free world decided there was no civil war in Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina; they now decided it was an international conflict between member states of former Yugoslavia. This political treachery was manoeuvred so that the EU and the Western powers wagging their self-important tails through the United Nations corridors could indict people for war crimes! In the case of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac the indictments were false and it took years for them to prove their innocence at the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague.

It is good to see that Ukrainians have such a strong backing for their fight to stay independent and free and this help could shorten the nightmare they are currently experiencing.

The Croatian Parliament, by a majority of 133 votes in favour and one abstention, accepted on Friday 25 February 2022 the Declaration on Ukraine, which strongly condemns Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence. During the debate, the ruling and the opposition showed a rarely seen harmony, with a message to Ukraine: “Croatia is firmly with you.”

The Declaration states that the Croatian Parliament strongly condemns the unprovoked aggression against Ukraine and its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence, and calls on Russia to immediately stop the military attack and withdraw its troops from Ukrainian territory.

The Croatian Parliament condemns the Russian recognition of the self-proclaimed regions of Donetsk and Luhansk because this act represents a gross violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and undermines the foundations of the international order.

It is also stated that the Croatian Parliament gives full support to the territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders, which is a fundamental determinant in relations and cooperation between the Republic of Croatia and Ukraine.

The Croatian Parliament expresses its full solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people and calls on the Government of the Republic of Croatia to provide humanitarian and technical assistance to Ukraine in this difficult time for them and for the whole peaceful world.

Among other things, the Declaration emphasises that in the context of the security situation in Eastern Europe, maintaining dialogue between all relevant international actors, calming tensions and aggressive rhetoric while respecting the international legal order and inviolability of international borders are key to preserving peace and stability in the region.

In ten points of the Declaration, the Croatian Parliament concludes that it is a secure, stable, and prosperous Ukraine in the strategic interest of all citizens of Ukraine, the European Union, the entire European continent, world peace and the international order.

Few people expected a war on the European continent in the 21st century, the war could have unforeseeable consequences for security and the economy, the world order has been called into question, what is happening is not just Ukraine, but all of us, said MP’s debate on the Declaration.

They strongly supported the sending of humanitarian and technical assistance to Ukraine and the expressed readiness to accept refugees from that country.

It was during the Serb attacks and aggression against Croatia that the world had become bitterly and sadly familiar with the term “ethnic cleansing”. Croats and other non-Serbs were driven from their homes in the Serb-occupied regions in Croatia; many forcefully taken to concentration camps for torture and death within Serbia itself and many murdered on their home doorstep. It is this dark reality from thirty years ago in particular that would seem to encourage Serbia of today and those Serbs in Croatia who sided with the 1990’s aggression to stand on Russia’s side and support Russia in what it is doing in Ukraine. Russia is doing to Ukraine today what Serbia did to Croatia in 1990’s and so it would be “handy” for Serbs if Russia wins in Ukraine and her victory acknowledged.

Evidence provides that Serbia has for several years been drifting away from the West, including the European Union which evidently it wants to join, and expanding its political, economic, and security ties with Russia as well as with China; both made up of strong and repulsive communist flavour. On Ukraine, Serbia has strayed even more dramatically from the European consensus, which is increasingly embracing a harder line against the Kremlin.  It is time that the West and the EU take a hard look at their accommodating approach toward Belgrade and show it that there are serious consequences for continuing this path, including potential sanctions. It is time for Croatia to take a hard look at its accommodating within its government the part of Serb ethnic minority that was directly and indirectly associated with the 1990’s aggression against Croatia and dissolve that association while maintaining the rights and needs of minorities in their daily living.  Ina Vukic

Lest We Forget – Srebrenica Massacre July 1995

Late on 9 July 1995, emboldened by early successes and little resistance from largely demilitarised Bosniaks, as well as the absence of any significant reaction from the international community, Radovan Karadžić issued a new order authorising the VRS Drina Corps (Army of Serbian Republic) to capture the town of Srebrenica

Disclaimer, Terms and Conditions:

All content on “Croatia, the War, and the Future” blog is for informational purposes only. “Croatia, the War, and the Future” blog is not responsible for and expressly disclaims all liability for the interpretations and subsequent reactions of visitors or commenters either to this site or its associate Twitter account, @IVukic or its Facebook account. Comments on this website are the sole responsibility of their writers and the writer will take full responsibility, liability, and blame for any libel or litigation that results from something written in or as a direct result of something written in a comment. The nature of information provided on this website may be transitional and, therefore, accuracy, completeness, veracity, honesty, exactitude, factuality and politeness of comments are not guaranteed. This blog may contain hypertext links to other websites or webpages. “Croatia, the War, and the Future” does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness or completeness of information on any other website or webpage. We do not endorse or accept any responsibility for any views expressed or products or services offered on outside sites, or the organisations sponsoring those sites, or the safety of linking to those sites. Comment Policy: Everyone is welcome and encouraged to voice their opinion regardless of identity, politics, ideology, religion or agreement with the subject in posts or other commentators. Personal or other criticism is acceptable as long as it is justified by facts, arguments or discussions of key issues. Comments that include profanity, offensive language and insults will be moderated.
%d