{"id":45461,"date":"2025-11-30T22:46:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T21:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/it-is-not-true-that-there-were-no-serbian-civilian-victims-in-vukovar-in-1991"},"modified":"2025-11-30T22:46:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T21:46:26","slug":"it-is-not-true-that-there-were-no-serbian-civilian-victims-in-vukovar-in-1991","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/it-is-not-true-that-there-were-no-serbian-civilian-victims-in-vukovar-in-1991","title":{"rendered":"It is not true that there were no Serbian civilian victims in Vukovar in 1991"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Association of Veterans of the Homeland War and Anti-Fascists VeDRA from Split announced that on Monday, November 17, the day before the commemoration of the Remembrance Day for the Victims of Vukovar<\/a>, they would throw a wreath into the Danube \u201cin memory of Vukovar citizens of Serbian nationality, civilians who were innocently killed during 1991.\u201d However, due to protests by war veterans who opposed this action, the association\u2019s representatives abandoned the plan. Among the gathered veterans was also MP Stipo Mlinari\u0107<\/strong> of the Homeland Movement, who stated on that occasion that in Vukovar \u201cno Serbian victims occurred\u201d and that \u201cno one was killed there except Croats.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cNo Serbian victims occurred here, nor was anyone killed except Croats, where the massacre took place on the 17th, 18th, 19. 19th, and 20th here in Vukovar. Their attempt to equate victim and aggressor will not pass,\u201d he said. (available here<\/a>, archived here<\/a>) <\/p>\n

Since MP Mlinari\u0107\u2019s statement that \u201cthere were no Serbian victims\u201d denies documented civilian casualties and promotes selective memory that deepens interethnic divisions, it is important to verify and correct it to prevent further dissemination of false claims about civilian suffering and to preserve respect for the victims and their families.<\/p>\n

Available data from state institutions, human rights organizations, researchers, and archives show that numerous killings and disappearances of Serbian civilians occurred in Vukovar in 1991, and that these cases are part of the city\u2019s overall wartime suffering. <\/p>\n

Although the Croatian judiciary has not yet issued any verdicts for the killings and disappearances of Serbs in Vukovar during 1991 \u2014 a fact highlighted by Documenta<\/a>, the center for confronting the past, in its most recent report on monitoring war crimes trials \u2014 the victims are documented. Documenta notes that \u201cinvestigations are still being conducted regarding crimes committed against Serbs in Vukovar, from late spring and summer 1991 until the fall of Vukovar, within the framework of the so-called preliminary proceedings.\u201d (available here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The State Attorney\u2019s Office of the Republic of Croatia (DORH) confirmed in 2018 in response to a query from Tportal (available here<\/g>, archived here<\/g>) that it is handling cases concerning disappearances and killings of persons of Serbian nationality in the Vukovar area in 1991. DORH stated that \u201cThe County State Attorney\u2019s Office in Zagreb has a file concerning the disappearance of civilian persons of Serbian nationality, specifically the reported disappearance of civilians of Serbian nationality between June 10 and August 13, 1991,\u201d and that \u201cinvestigations are being conducted by the Police Directorate, War Crimes Service. During the current inquiries, interviews have been conducted with a large number of individuals, and a significant number of people have been questioned at the State Attorney\u2019s Office as witnesses, and relevant documentation has been collected.\u201d They added that \u201cregarding the suffering of persons of Serbian nationality in the months preceding the occupation of the city of Vukovar, until November 18, 1991, the County State Attorney\u2019s Office in Vukovar is also handling cases against unknown perpetrators, in cooperation with the police, conducting necessary investigations to identify those responsible for these criminal acts.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (HHO) provided lists of persons of Serbian nationality who, according to statements from witnesses and families, disappeared in Vukovar in the spring and summer of 1991 to the State Attorney\u2019s Office in late 1995, and again in the early 2000s. The investigation officially began in November 2002, according to then-HHO president \u017darko Puhovski<\/strong> (available here<\/a>, archived here<\/a>). <\/p>\n

Overall estimates of the number of Serbian civilian victims in Vukovar in 1991 vary by source. The Serb National Council (SNV), the umbrella organization for the Serbian national minority in Croatia, maintains a publicly available database of war crimes against Serbs. In the publication \u201cWar Crimes Against Serbs in Croatia 1991\u201395\u201d (available here<\/a>), SNV also published a nominal list of victims, providing full names, dates of abduction or death, and circumstances of disappearance, covering the period from June 1991 to summer 1992. The publication states: \u201cHere we list some of the names of Serbian victims in Vukovar for whom it can be stated with high certainty that they were victims of killings and similar suffering,\u201d listing 114 individuals. SNV notes that the total number of Serbian victims who were killed or subjected to some form of abuse in the Vukovar area during the war has not been fully determined, but estimates of the number of killed civilians of Serbian nationality range \u201cfrom several dozen to more than 120.\u201d <\/p>\n

In addition to official and research sources, the media over the past three decades have documented numerous specific cases of killed or missing Serbian civilians in Vukovar, as well as numerous testimonies (examples available here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The claim by MP Stipo Mlinari\u0107 that \u201cthere were no Serbian victims\u201d in Vukovar does not correspond to historical facts. The existence of Serbian civilians who were killed or disappeared in Vukovar in 1991 is confirmed in the nominal lists of the SNV, in Croatian Helsinki Committee documentation, and in cases handled by DORH.
Denying the existence of these victims distorts the historical record, devalues the suffering of the victims\u2019 families, and hinders efforts to build trust in the region. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Funded by the European Union \u2013 NextGenerationEU.<\/em><\/p>\n

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission, nor the positions of the Agency for Electronic Media. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission, nor the Agency for Electronic Media can be held responsible for them. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contrary to MP Mlinari\u0107\u2019s claim, numerous sources confirm killings and disappearances of civilians of Serbian nationality in Vukovar in 1991, even though there are still no final court verdicts for these cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[392],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-check-en","infinite-scroll-item","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Vukovar-1-e1764538522517.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Vukovar-1-e1764538522517.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Olivera Radovi\u0107","author_link":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/author\/olja"},"rbea_author_info":{"display_name":"Olivera Radovi\u0107","author_link":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/author\/olja"},"rbea_excerpt_info":"Contrary to MP Mlinari\u0107\u2019s claim, numerous sources confirm killings and disappearances of civilians of Serbian nationality in Vukovar in 1991, even though there are still no final court verdicts for these cases.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}