SO WE KNOW: Kukurovići, Februar 18, 1993

On February 18, 1993 members of the Užice Corps of the Yugoslav Army (YA) committed an artillery attack on the Kukurovići village, located along the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, on which occasion three people were killed: Uzeir Bulutović, Mušan Husović, and Fatima Sarač. Fearing for their lives, remaining residents fled the village, leaving their property behind to be destroyed and torched down.

Members of the YA came to the greater Kukurovići village area including villages Milanovići, Sjeverin, Sočice, Živinice, Brnjica, and Voskovina in May 1992. From that time on, residents of the villages situated along the border who were mostly Muslims, were subjected to constant house searches, unprovoked shootings on their houses, intimidation, threats, plunder, and torture, which resulted in a decision of over 200 families to leave their property and flee the village.

It has been 18 years since those events took place and the residents of the Kukurovići and other villages have not been able to return to their homes because their property was destroyed and plundered. Not only did the institutions of Serbia fail to help them rebuild their property, but they never granted them the status of displaced persons or offered them any sort of help.

In October 2006 the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) filed a criminal complaint with the Office of the Prosecutor in Užice against unidentified members of the Užice Corps for the murder of three residents of the Kukurovići village. In the meantime the case was taken over by the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor of the Republic of Serbia. In 2007 HLC filed three compensation lawsuits against the Republic of Serbia on behalf of the families of the killed residents of the Kukurovići village. Only one has been finalized up to date – the case in which the Trial Chamber denied the lawsuit filed by the three children of the late Uzeir Bulutović on the grounds of the statute of limitations.