Škabrnja massacre
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| Croatian War of Independence |
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Škabrnja massacre (Croatian Masakr u Škabrinji) was one of the worst war crimes committed during the Croatian War of Independence. On November 18, 1991, Serb paramilitaries, supported by the JNA, captured the village of Škabrnja and killed 25 POWs and 61 civilians over the next several days. [1]
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[edit] Before the massacre
According to the census of 1991, Škabrnja (near Zadar) was inhabited by 1,953 people in 397 households, and almost all of them were Croats, there wasn't a single Serb resident. When the Serbs rebelled in the Croatian War of Independence, aiming to form Republic of Serbian Krajina, Škabrnja found itself surrounded by Serb-inhabited villages.
On November 18, the Serbian forces started firing mortars on Škabrnja, and soon invaded it with armored vehicles and tanks. The Yugoslav People's Army and paramilitary forces engaged the fewer and more lightly armed Croatian Army forces which had been formed by villagers in October. They destroyed one APC and one tank, but the entire JNA battalion of thirty motorized units assaulted from two directions (one from Zemunik Gornji in the northwest and another from Biljane in the southeast) and soon overran the defenders.
[edit] The massacre
The Serbian paramilitaries entered the hamlet of Ambar and massacred all prisoners, and then proceeded to the center of Škabrnja where they committed more murder and took some civilians as prisoners. In that one day, 43 civilians and 15 Croatian soldiers were killed, and numerous houses were destroyed.
Over the next couple of days, the murder count rose to 86, and much of the village was burnt and demolished. One group of 26 civilians was buried in a mass grave near the center of the village.
[edit] ICTY
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia indicted Milan Babić and Milan Martić for these atrocities, naming at least 38 civilian victims in Škabrnja (in addition to others in surrounding villages and elsewhere).
