VUKOVIĆ: I WILL NOT GIVE UP PROVING TRUTH; THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR CRIMES MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

BANJA LUKA, MAY 1 /SRNA/ – Miroslav Vuković, originally from the village of Medari near Nova Gradiška, testified to SRNA about how Croatian soldiers killed eight members of his family 31 years ago, stressing that he will not give up on proving the truth in order to bring to justice those responsible for the crimes against his relatives and all Serb civilians killed in the criminal operation Flash.

Vuković said that on May 1, 1995, in Medari, his uncle Ranko and his wife Anđelija, along with their children Goran /11/ and Gordana /8/, as well as his uncle Milutin, his wife Cvijeta, and their daughter Dragana /7/, were slaughtered on their doorsteps, together with a total of 28 Serb civilians from the village. “My uncles and their families lived in a zone under the protection of UN forces, which withdrew during the night and left the Serb people in Medari and throughout Western Slavonia at the mercy of Croatian soldiers,” Vuković stated. He added that on the same day, in Okučani, his brother Zoran Vuković, a member of the Republika Srpska Krajina Militia, was killed by a sniper, emphasizing that his family lost eight members in a single day. “With great difficulty, we managed to find all their bodies, exhume them, identify them, and bury them with dignity in Republika Srpska,” Vuković said. According to him, the monstrous nature of the crime is reflected in the fact that Croatian soldiers did not bury Serb victims in cemeteries, but rather in plots of land along roads leading to cemeteries. He also pointed out that Medari and surrounding Serb villages, once inhabited by Serbs before the war, are now deserted and resemble graveyards, with no Serbs left, while Croatian authorities are attempting to resettle them with Roma and other populations. Vuković, who currently lives in Gradiška, said that 31 years after the fall of Western Slavonia, he rarely visits Medari, as no Croatian authorities are willing to initiate anything that would uncover the truth about those who ordered and directly carried out this grave crime, even though they are well known. “Before the war, I gladly went to Medari, where I spent my holidays and played carefree with peers and neighbourhood children, which are beautiful childhood memories. Everything was interrupted by the horror of this criminal operation, which took the lives of my family members and other Serb civilians,” Vuković emphasized. He noted that war crimes never become time-barred and that his family will never give up on establishing the truth and bringing both those who ordered and those who directly committed the crimes to justice. Vuković states that it is a painful fact that even 31 years after the crimes against Serb civilians in the Croatian Army and police operation Flash in Western Slavonia, no one among those who ordered or carried out the crime has been held accountable. Today Gradiška is marking the 31st anniversary of the pogrom of 15,000 Serbs from Western Slavonia during the Croatian operation Flash, which killed at least 263 Serbs, including 12 children. On May 1, 1995, Croatian armed forces carried out an offensive under the codename “Flash” against the Serb-controlled region of Western Slavonia, which was part of Republika Srpska Krajina, at a time when the area was under UN protection. More than 16,000 members of the Croatian armed forces were deployed against the Serbs in Western Slavonia, including around 15,000 civilians and about 4,000 soldiers. Around 1,450 members of the Serb Army of Krajina were captured, most of them through deception with the assistance of UN forces, many of whom later endured severe psychological and physical abuse in Bjelovar and Varaždin. This Croatian operation, within just 36 hours, expelled 15,000 Serbs, killed at least 263, including 107 civilians, among them 12 children.