In Vukovar, the memorial cemetery of the victims of homeland war
According to the memorial Centre of Homeland War Vukovar "this is the largest mass grave in Europe after World War II. It is located on the eastern outskirts of Vukovar. There were 938 bodies exhumed and in its place 938 white crosses were set up. In the central part of the cemetery is a statue designed by Ms. Durda Ostoja, revealed on August 5th, 2000. The monument is made of patinated bronze, it is four meters high, and in the middle there is an "air" cross and an eternal flame."
People exhumed in the Memorial Cemetery Vukovar were the victims of the Vukovar massacre, one of the more dramatic events during the Croatian War of Independerce.
The Croatian War of Independence also known in Croatia as Homeland War was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the government of Croatia -which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)- and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat operations in Croatia by 1992.
Most of Croats wanted Croatia to leave Yugoslavia and become a sovereign country, while many ethnic Serbs living in Croatia, supported by Serbia opposed the secession and wanted Serb-claimed lands to be in a common state with Serbia. Croatia declared
independence on 25 June 1991, but agreed to postpone it with the Brioni Agreement and cut all remaining ties with Yugoslavia on 8 October 1991.
The Vukovar massacre, was the killing of Croatian priosoners of war and civilians by Serb paramilitaries and the Yugolsav People’s Army (JNA) at the Ovčara farm southeast of Vukovar on 20 November 1991, during the Croatian War of Independence. It was the largest massacre of the war and the worst war crime in Europe since World War II up until that point.
