20th Anniversary of the War Crime Committed in Lovas

LOVAS, October 18^th, 2011 – Twenty years ago, on October 18^th, 1991, after occupying the Croatian part of Srem, members of the Yugoslav Peoples’ Army and the Serbian paramilitary unit “Dušan Silni” (Dušan the Mighty) took 51 residents of the village of Lovas to a so-called “bloody grape harvest”. The residents, the youngest of whom was 19 years old and the oldest was 60 years old, were forced, under the threat of use of weapons, to go through a minefield. On this occasion, 21 residents of the village were killed and 14 were wounded. The proceedings before the Higher Court in Belgrade in this case have been pending for 3 years already.

Victims’ family members, residents of the village of Lovas, a representative of the Croat Ambassador to Belgrade, and representatives of two non-governmental organizations from Serbia, Women in Black and Nataša Kandić, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Law Center, attended the commemoration held on October 18^th, 2011.