Until 1995, Dvor was called Dvor na Uni. In 1991, the area of the Municipality of Dvor had 14,555 inhabitants living in 64 settlements, of whom 86.5% were Serbs and 9.58% were Croats. The Croatian population mainly lived in six settlements along the River Una, from Dvor towards Kostajnica, and in those settlements, they constituted an absolute majority, whereas Serbs were the absolute majority in the remaining 58 settlements of the Municipality. According to the 2011 census, 5,570 inhabitants live in the same area, of whom 4,005 or 71.9% are Serbs, and 1,440 or 25.85% are Croats.

Date: 8 August 1995

Description of the crime: On 8 August 1995, between 2:30 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., twelve people were killed in a school building in Dvor na Uni using hand grenades and automatic firearms: ten individuals with mental and physical disabilities and one married couple. As far as is known, all victims were Serbs. The crime was witnessed by members of the Danish battalion of UNCRO forces, who were stationed in Dvor at the time, one of whom, Jan Wellendorf, testified publicly about the incident in the Danish media in 2011. After that, the case also became known to the Croatian public. According to that testimony, the Danish soldiers wanted to intervene, specifically, to open fire and attempt to prevent the crime, but were ordered not to intervene and only to observe. The civilians killed in the school in Dvor had been brought from Petrinja several days earlier, together with about 40 other people, psychiatric patients and residents of a care home, most of whom subsequently managed to flee to Bosanski Novi. Only the most severely disabled remained in Dvor, those whom no one could or would take with them.

Potential perpetrators: According to available information, the murders were committed by 12 individuals in camouflage uniforms with no visible insignia indicating affiliation with any army. Croatian forces had entered Dvor in the afternoon of the previous day, but during the morning and throughout 8 August, those same forces were retreating towards Zamlača due to a counterattack by Serbian forces from the direction of Bosanski Novi, aimed at breaking through to remaining Serbian soldiers and civilians on the Glina — Dvor — Bosanski Novi route. At the time of the crime, combat was taking place in Dvor near the crime scene between members of the Serbian Army of Krajina and the Croatian Army, and several sources also mention the presence of the 5th Corps of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Dvor during the events in question. Immediately after the crime, according to initial reports published by The New York Times and The Independent, citing the UN spokesperson in Zagreb, Philip Arnold, as well as testimonies and reports from Danish soldiers, the killers were reportedly wearing uniforms bearing the insignia of the 5th Corps of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but this information was not repeated in later reports.

Victims:

  1. Macut, Jovan (Stevan), born 20 January 1931
  2. Marić, Anka (Petar), born 5 May 1928
  3. Marić, Zorka (Dmitar), born 1 January 1955
  4. Mileković, Katica (Joso), born 10 May 1939
  5. Krivokuća, Darko (Nikola), born 24 June 1966
  6. Kovač, Dragica (Stevo), born 20 January 1949
  7. Ružak, Terezija (Rudolf), born 27 September 1913
  8. Teodorović, Desanka (-), born 1 January 1915

The bodies of Zorka Marić, Jovan Macut, Terezija Ružak, and Dragica Kovač were identified through DNA analysis and buried. Subsequent investigative efforts determined that Slobodan Vukšić, Jasenka Vukšić, and Ljubo Vujić were not victims. The identities of the remaining individuals have been listed, but their connection to this particular crime has not been fully confirmed, or they are listed as missing. The identity of one victim remains unknown.

Judicial consequences: The perpetrators are most commonly referred to as unidentified individuals without insignia. In an effort to bring the case to a conclusion, at the end of 2012 an agreement was reached between representatives of the State Attorney’s Office of the Republic of Croatia and the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office on continued cooperation in determining and identifying the perpetrators and all the circumstances surrounding this war crime. Witnesses were jointly interviewed in Copenhagen, but there is currently no publicly available information regarding the outcomes of these joint efforts. Nearly thirty years after the crime was committed, the perpetrators have not only gone unpunished, but it has not even been definitively established to which army they belonged or why the murders were carried out. Despite the fact that the murder at the school in Dvor has been listed as one of the priorities of the Croatian State Attorney’s Office, no progress has yet been made towards initiating judicial proceedings for this crime.

Considerable public controversy arose following the release of a Danish documentary film about the case. Since the film was co-financed by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC), various veterans’ associations and individuals claimed that it attributed responsibility for the crime to the Croatian army, although the film primarily focuses on questioning the responsibility of the Danish battalion and its commander.