Criminal charges against unidentified members of the Užički Corps

The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) filed criminal charges at the Office of the District Prosecutor in Užice related to an armed attack on the Muslim village of Kukurovići in the Priboj municipality conducted by unidentified members of the Užički Corps, a division of the Yugoslav Army. The attack happened on February 18 and April 11 of 1993. On that occasion three civilians were killed and the property of the majority of the population of the village completely destroyed.

From the statements eyewitnesses gave to the HLC, in the afternoon of February 18, 1993, the village of Kukurovići was attacked by infantry and mortar fire from three Yugoslav Army camps located in close proximity to the village. Fearing for their lives, the villagers among whom there were children, fled through the woods in the direction of Pljevlja and Priboj. While still on the run, some of them saw their houses up in flames. Two days later, some of them came back to Kukurovići to check up on their property. All they found were their houses burnt to the ground and slaughtered livestock. The bodies of Uzeir Bulut, Mušan Husović, Fatima Sarač, who were not able to escape the attack were found in some of the torched houses. On April 11, 1993, when the village was completely abandoned, another eight houses and adjunct buildings were torched, as well.

The village of Kukurovići was once inhabited mainly by Muslim population. It is located near the Serbian border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since May 8, 1992 until the end of the war conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a significant number of Yugoslav Army reserve troops from the Uzicki Corps were located in Kukurovići and other villages in the border area. Inhabitants of those villages were subjected to abuse and illegal house search by the Yugoslav Army members on a daily basis solely because of their ethnicity.

The investigative judge investigated the crime scene but never interviewed any of the inhabitants of the Kukurovići village, or conducted any further investigation.

HLC would like to reiterate that the inhabitants of the Kukurovići village were not able to rebuild their homes on their own, they haven’t returned to the village as of yet, they were never granted displaced persons status or received any sort of assistance from the government.