The village of Uzdolje is located close to Knin, on the road connecting Knin and Drniš. According to the 1991 census, Uzdolje had 767 inhabitants, of whom 765 were Serbs. The 2011 census recorded 226 residents, though this number has further declined since then.

Date: 6 August 1995

Description of the crime: In the early hours of 6 August 1995, three men armed with automatic rifles arrived in Šare, a hamlet of Uzdolje village in the then Municipality of Orlić, driving a white civilian car. All three had black hair; two wore camouflage uniforms, while the third wore a black neckerchief, camouflage trousers, and a black short-sleeved T-shirt with a black ribbon bearing the inscription “For Homeland — ready!”. All three wore dark blue caps with emblems featuring the Croatian checkerboard. They found Krsto Šare standing outside his house with Jandrija Šare, Stevo Berić, Janja Berić, Milica Šare, Đurdija Berić, Bosiljka Berić, and another person — all dressed in civilian clothes. One of the armed men saw a female witness to the crime, struck her arm with the butt of his rifle, and ordered her to join the others. The armed men then ordered the group to walk towards the paved Knin-Drniš road. At one point, one of the men pushed Stevo Berić to the ground and tore up his documents, saying he would no longer need them. Shortly afterwards, one of the armed men said: “Let’s finish them off, our lamb will get cold.” The group stopped about 30 metres from the road at a spot out of sight of passing vehicles. Two of the armed men left with two local women who were later driven separately to Knin. The third armed man, who had earlier struck the female witness, stayed with the remaining captives and ordered them to walk back from the main road towards the hamlet, insulting them over what had happened in Vukovar and intimidating them. After some time, the group encountered Miloš Ćosić, whom the armed man ordered to join them. The armed man then opened fire on the group with an automatic rifle, killing Milica Šare, Stevo Berić, Janja Berić, Đurdija Berić, Krsto Šare, Miloš Ćosić, and Jandrija Šare. The female witness, wounded during the shooting, managed to flee into the forest and survived. An autopsy determined that the victims died from gunshot wounds. On the same day, Sava Šare was killed in her home in the hamlet of Šare. In the following days after Operation Storm, around ten more civilians were killed in surrounding villages including Orlić, Markovac, Biskupija, and Vrbnik.

Victims:

  1. Berić, Đurđija (Jovan), born 15 March 1916
  2. Berić, Janja (Stevan), born 11 April 1932
  3. Berić, Stevan (Miloš), born 24 June 1933
  4. Borjan, Miloš (Stevan), born 6 March 1969 / 24 March 1969
  5. Ćosić, Miloš/Milan (Petar), born 1 March 1923
  6. Šare, Jandrija (Todor), born 30 July 1932
  7. Šare, Krstan (Dušan), born 18 October 1933
  8. Šare, Milica (Vaso), born 22 January 1922
  9. Šare, Sava (Nikola), born 1 January 1915

Judicial consequences: Since no one has been held accountable for the crime in question, Documenta — Centre for Dealing with the Past filed a criminal complaint with the Croatian State Attorney’s Office (DORH) on 4 August 2017 regarding the crimes committed in Uzdolje. The County State Attorney’s Office in Šibenik responded to the complaint as follows: “Following the exhumation conducted in 2001 at the city cemetery in Knin and the receipt of relevant materials, the County State Attorney’s Office in Šibenik opened cases related to the killing of civilians between 6 and 9 August 1995 in Uzdolje and Vrbnik, affecting at least ten civilians, due to suspicion that these constituted war crimes. An order was issued to the competent Šibenik-Knin Police Department and Military Police to conduct investigations and criminal inquiries to establish the circumstances of the killings and identify the perpetrators.”