Thirty-one years have passed since the brutal and still unpunished murders of Serb civilians in the Bukovica villages of Gošić and Varivode, committed in the weeks following the end of the Croatian military operation “Storm”. Although the victims were exclusively elderly residents who chose to remain in their homes, trusting official security guarantees issued at the time, three decades later, the Croatian judiciary still provides no answers as to who ordered and executed these crimes.
The crime in the village of Gošić near Knin took place on August 27, 1995, when seven ethnic Serb residents were shot at close range in their yards and on their doorsteps: Savo Borak (70), Vasilj Borak (68), Grozdana Borak (75), Marija Borak (81), Kosovka Borak (77), Milka Borak (75), and Dušan Borak (56). A month later, on September 28, 1995, nearly two months after the cessation of military hostilities, ten more civilians were killed in the nearby village of Varivode: Jovan Berić (75), Špiro Berić (55), Radivoj Berić (69), Marija Berić (69), Mirko Pokrajac (84), Dušan Dukić (59), Marko Berić (82), Milka Berić (67), Jovan Berić (56), as well as Uglješa Ilijašević (54), whose body was later discovered in a local water cistern. The average age of the victims in these two villages, which saw no military activity during the war, was nearly 70 years old.
In an attempt to cover up the crime, Croatian police secretly buried the victims’ bodies at the Knin cemetery under “unknown” markers. It was not until the spring of 2001 that ICTY investigators exhumed their remains, as part of a group of 301 bodies buried in Knin from the time of Operation “Storm” and its aftermath. The families identified them in 2002. Memorials erected in their home villages by the Municipality of Kistanje and the Serb National Council have since been repeatedly vandalized and desecrated.
The judicial aftermath of these events resulted in a complete failure. Under international pressure, the County State Attorney's Office in Zadar indicted six former Croatian soldiers (Nikola Rašić, Ivan Jakovljević, Pero Perković, Ivica Petrić, Zlatko Ladović, and Nediljko Mijić) in 1996 for murder motivated by self-interest. Despite the fact that four of the accused confessed to the crime during the investigation, the County Court in Zadar acquitted them that same year due to a “lack of evidence.” The Supreme Court of Croatia overturned the acquittal, but during the retrial in Šibenik on February 13, 2002, the prosecutor dropped all charges, claiming new leads on other potential perpetrators and promising a new investigation. Today, 31 years later, no one has been convicted for these murders, nor for numerous other post-operation crimes in neighboring Krajina villages.
The ultimate outcome of these unpunished events is the complete demographic devastation of this part of Dalmatia. According to the 1991 census, Gošić had 107 residents (106 Serbs) and Varivode had 477 (472 Serbs). Three decades later, the 2021 census reveals that only 21 people live in Gošić, with no residents under the age of 40, while Varivode has just 61 inhabitants, none under the age of 25—starkly illustrating the enduring consequences of the 1995 exodus and crimes.
Belgrade/Banja Luka, August 26, 2026
Information Service of the DIC “Veritas”
