Skabrnja, a town in the centre of the coastal city of Zadar, commemorates on Monday the Croatian civilians and soldiers who were killed 33 years ago in an attack by troops of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serbian paramilitaries led by JNA officer Ratko Mladic.

During the attack by the occupying forces on 18 November 1991, 43 civilians and 15 defenders were massacred. A total of 56 civilians and 25 defenders died in the town during the 1991-1995 Homeland War. A further six villagers died in mine explosions after the war.

The attack on Skabrnja began in the early hours of 18 November 1991, when civilians, mainly women, children and elderly people, hid in cellars and other shelters, from where they were dragged out, killed and mutilated. About a hundred civilians, mainly women and children, were taken to Benkovac as prisoners.

Only the nurse was convicted of war crimes in Skabrnja

When they entered the town, the JNA troops and Serbian rebels destroyed the local church and devastated the area.

Former nurse Zorana Banic, a member of the Serb paramilitary forces, is the only person convicted of war crimes in Skabrnja. She was initially found guilty in absentia of violating international law and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

After she was arrested in Switzerland in 2001 and extradited to Croatia, she was tried again and sentenced to 13 years in prison. The judgement was overturned and at a new trial she was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The Supreme Court reduced the sentence to six years and she was released from prison in October 2007.

Commemorative events

Skabrnja was liberated at the beginning of August 1995 during Operation Storm by the police and army at the end of the 1991-1995 Homeland War.

Ratko Mladic, dubbed “The Butcher of Bosnia” by foreign media for his role in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which he led the Serbian forces, was found guilty of the most serious war crimes by the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT) in June 2021 and sentenced to life imprisonment.

On Monday, President Zoran Milanovic and several government ministers are expected to attend the central memorial ceremony in honour of the victims of Skabrnja in the Dalmatian town.