September 21, 2026, marks the 35th anniversary of one of the first mass atrocities committed against members of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) during the 1990s war, which took place on the Korana Bridge in Karlovac in 1991. On that day, members of the Ministry of the Interior and the National Guard Corps (ZNG) of the Republic of Croatia intercepted two military trucks in front of the Korana River bridge. The vehicles were transporting active and reserve JNA personnel from the “Mekušje” barracks to the “Logorište” barracks. Following negotiations and explicit promises of safe passage by the Croatian side, the soldiers laid down their weapons.
Immediately upon surrender, a group of active JNA members was taken to the Karlovac police station, while a second group of 17 reservists from the Kordun region was forced to march across the Korana Bridge on foot. As soon as they stepped onto the bridge, masked individuals in uniforms attacked them, initiating a brutal execution that claimed the lives of 13 reservists: Jovan Sipić (25), Božo Kozlina (27), Nebojša Popović (24), Milić Savić (41), Milenko Lukač (32), Nikola Babić (43), Slobodan Milovanović (25), Svetozar Gojković (32), Miloš Srdić (43), Zoran Komadina (27), Mile Babić (42) – an active JNA non-commissioned officer who voluntarily chose to stay with the reservists, Vaso Bižić (36), and Mile Peurača (27). All the victims were residents of Krnjak and its surrounding villages. Three reservists—Nebojša Jasnić, Duško Mrkić, and Branko Mađarac—survived by jumping off the bridge, while the severely wounded Svetozar Šarac managed to extricate himself from beneath the bodies of his fallen comrades.
The criminal prosecution of Mihajlo Mišo Hrastov, a member of the Karlovac special police unit, began in May 1992 and concluded only in May 2015. The Supreme Court of Croatia sentenced him to a mere four years in prison for crimes against humanity and international law—specifically, the unlawful killing and wounding of enemy combatants. Over 23 years, the Croatian judiciary produced a staggering seven verdicts (with lower courts repeatedly acquitting him and higher courts overturning those rulings), effectively turning a convicted war criminal into a national hero. Despite extensive evidence demonstrating that multiple individuals participated in the execution under orders from the Karlovac Crisis Staff, the Croatian judiciary has failed to prosecute anyone other than Hrastov. In stark contrast, for the killing of three Croatian police officers near Budačka Rijeka in August 1991, a Karlovac court sentenced three Kordun Serbs in absentia in 1999 to the maximum penalty of 20 years in prison each.
Despite his definitive war crimes conviction, Hrastov has been elevated to an “icon of the defenders” in Croatia. On the 30th anniversary of the massacre, a large mural featuring his likeness was painted in Karlovac. Furthermore, by decree of the Karlovac City Council, the Korana Bridge was officially renamed after the “Grom” special police unit, to which Hrastov belonged. Such actions represent an institutional glorification of war crimes, inflicting further pain and humiliation upon the victims and their families.
Belgrade/Banjaluka, September 20, 2026.
Information Service of DIC “Veritas”
