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The Humanitarian Law Centre report presentation in Zagreb on Friday. Photo: Anja Vladisavljevic.

The Yugoslav People’s Army, JNA used heavy artillery during the siege and capture of Vukovar and deployed about 15,000 troops, including Serb volunteer fighters who were under its command, the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre told a press conference in Zagreb on Friday.

“In contrast to all this power, the [Croatian] forces defending Vukovar numbered no more than 1,800 troops,” said Jovana Kolaric, the author of a Humanitarian Law Centre report entitled ‘The JNA in the Wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina’.

The town in eastern Croatia was captured in November 1991 after a devastating three-month siege. After it fell to the JNA, thousands of non-Serbs were expelled, thousands were transported to prison camps in Serbia, and hundreds were executed at the nearby Ovcara farm and in other places.

Kolaric told BIRN that the reason for the Humanitarian Law Centre event in Zagreb was the 27th anniversary of the fall of Vukovar, which will be marked by Croatian officials on Sunday.

“By presenting the JNA dossier on the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, we would like to remind you of the crimes committed during these actions and the importance of prosecuting of those who are responsible for them,” she said.

According to the Humanitarian Law Centre report, which was published in July this year, the JNA was used to achieve the Serbian leadership’s nationalist goals during the 1990s wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On the same day as Vukovar fell, the JNA and the Croatian authorities signed an agreement in Zagreb to evacuate the sick and wounded from Vukovar hospital and transfer them to Croatian-controlled territory.

But Kolaric said that the JNA did not respect the agreement and did not allow the European observers to gain access to the hospital.

The next day, JNA soldiers entered the hospital, in which there were about 750 people, including wounded patients, but also Croatian fighters and civilians who had sought refuge.

They separated 250 men from the women and children, put the men in buses and took them to Ovcara to be killed, Kolaric said.

At Friday’s presentation, Vesna Terselic, the head of the Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past, expressed concern that the war crimes prosecutor’s offices in both Croatia and Serbia are issuing fewer and fewer indictments and verdicts.

She also expressed concern about the level of public awareness about what happened in Vukovar 27 years ago.

“I’m worried that neither in Croatia nor in Serbia or Bosnia and Herzegovina are there regular public opinion polls, and we do not really know what people think about the aggression against Vukovar, what people think about the urban destruction of Vukovar,” Terselic said.

Read more:

Serbia ‘Used Yugoslav Army for War Goals’: Report

Croatians Detained in Serbian Prison Camps Sue Belgrade

Croatians Protest ‘Silence’ Over War Crimes Prosecutions in Vukovar

Defending Croatia’s Vukovar: ‘Real War is No Movie’