On the occasion of the 31st anniversary of the military operation “Storm”, the Documentation and Information Center “Veritas” reminds the public of the unpunished exodus of over 220,000 Krajina Serbs. On August 4, 1995, the armed forces of the Republic of Croatia, with the approval of the United States and the support of NATO, launched an aggression against the UN-protected zones (Northern Dalmatia, Lika, Kordun, and Banija). The attack was carried out despite the fact that only a day earlier, representatives of the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Geneva had accepted the international community's proposal for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Faced with only 30,000 Krajina soldiers, the aggressor deployed forces that exceeded the total population of the SAO Krajina, breaking the resistance in an overwhelmingly unequal battle within just a few days.
A Grim Record of the 1990s: The Majority of Victims Were Civilians and Women
According to the updated records of “Veritas”, the names of 1,904 Serbs killed or missing during and after this operation have been documented. The victims included helpless individuals who could not or would not leave their ancestral homes, as well as those in refugee columns heading towards the Una River and deep into the territory of the Republika Srpska. Among the casualties, an astonishing 1,250 were civilians (66%), of whom three-quarters were over the age of 60. This operation claimed the lives of ten children and 566 women (30%), representing a particularly grim record of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. To this day, 612 individuals (32%) remain listed as missing, including 76% civilians and 238 women, whose fates remain unresolved even after three decades.
Lack of International Justice and Croatia's Selective Judiciary
Although the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unequivocally qualified “Operation Storm” in its 2015 judgment as an act of ethnic cleansing aimed at removing the Serb majority, the judicial system failed entirely. Under political pressure, the Appeals Chamber of the ICTY acquitted Croatian Generals Gotovina and Markač, overturning the initial unanimous first-instance verdict regarding a joint criminal enterprise. For war crimes committed against Serbs, Croatian courts have legally convicted only two individuals (Božo Bačelić and Rajko Kričković). Concurrently, surviving Krajina soldiers have faced widespread sentences to long-term imprisonment, while thousands of helpless civilians were forcibly interned in civilian camps.
A Historic Milestone Before the Court in Belgrade
A significant turning point in the pursuit of justice occurred before the War Crimes Department of the High Court in Belgrade, where proceedings are underway against four high-ranking Croatian officers and pilots for war crimes against the civilian population. They are charged with the brutal shelling of a Serb refugee column on August 7 and 8, 1995, on the Petrovačka and Prijedorska roads. Despite years of administrative obstruction and official Zagreb's refusal to recognize the indictment, a legally binding decision was made to try the accused in absentia. Following approximately ten hearings and the testimonies of dozens of witnesses, the next main trial in this historic process is scheduled for September 25 of this year. The absence of substantive justice has opened the doors to radical revisionism and the promotion of neo-fascism in Croatia, a trend to which the European Union continues to react tepidly and with unacceptable delay.
Belgrade/Banja Luka, July 31, 2026
INFORMATION SERVICE OF DIC “VERITAS”
NOTE FOR THE MEDIA:
Detailed statistical data, a chronicle of events, the registry of victims, as well as the full text of this year's extended report by DIC “Veritas” can be found on the official website: https://www.veritas.org.rs/rubrika/saopstenja/
