Five people were injured in a violent attack on Wednesday evening after a group of masked thugs stormed a bar near Knin where locals were watching a broadcast of a European club football match involving the Serbian club Red Star and Swiss club Young Boys. The attack is believed to be ethnically motivated.

According to police reports, a group of attackers had stormed into a bar in Uzdolje just south of Knin and started beating up people watching the game.

Five people were taken to Knin hospital for injuries, including the bar owner who was reportedly hit by a bottle, and a 9-year-old child, local news website Feral News reported.

The attack is thought to be ethnically motivated, as many ethnic Serbs in Croatia support Serbian football clubs such as Belgrade-based Red Star and Partizan rather than Croatian football giants such as Dinamo Zagreb or Hajduk Split.

The four clubs had once formed the Big Four of Yugoslav football, vying for trophies and dominating the game before the country’s dissolution in the 1990s. During the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, all four became potent nationalist symbols.

Police said that they brought in for questioning several people they believe are related to the incident.

On Thursday morning, the attack was condemned by Boris Milosevic, the leader of the Serb National Council (SNV) which is the largest association of ethnic Serbs in Croatia.

In a Facebook post, Milosevic immediately called the attack a hate crime, adding that the attackers were clearly motivated purely by the victims’ Serb ethnicity. He mentioned other cases of thug violence against Serbs such as the attack on Red Star water polo players in February in Split and the attack on hospitality workers on the island of Brac in June.

“(The attack) on a group of people in a bar, which included women and children, is an act of savagery and cowardice. This was not a case of violence between football hooligans. Any attempt to downplay this ugly event would mean justifying violence and taking the side of the attackers. Will the manufacturing of hatred ever stop?”

Later on Thursday, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic also condemned the attack.

“I condemn this (incident) in strongest terms possible,” Plenkovic told reporters after attending a meeting of ambassadors accredited to Croatia in Zagreb.

He added that the attack was committed by individuals, rejecting the notion that violence came as a result of a more general atmosphere in Croatia’s society fosters intolerance.

“I don’t see such an atmosphere. This was a crime carried out by individuals, which they should be punished for. There are always some people who are deviants. God forbid that this sort of thing ever becomes common, that would be cause for concern,” Plenkovic added.

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