Saborsko Massacre - The Assault On Saborsko Region

The Assault On Saborsko Region

According to the census of 1991, Saborsko had 1,701 inhabitants in 460 households. The majority were the autochthonous Croats. Local Serb paramilitaries had started with attacks on Croat villages on October 1, 1991, with military support of JNA forces from Knin. Among other attacks, these forces had attacked Saborsko, a small village located some 10 kilometers northwest from Plitvička Jezera.

The assault, ICTY sources confirm, was a part of the ethnic cleansing plan. According to that plan, "all Croats and other non-Serbs were to be displaced from there, in order to get ethnically clean Republic of Serbian Krajina". Ethnically cleansed areas were used as jumpboards for the further assaults on other areas of Croatia.

""...Thus, the threat clearly expressed in Milan Martić's ultimatum in Kijevo was carried out in the territory of the SAO Krajina through the commission of widespread, grave crimes. This created an atmosphere of fear in which the further presence of Croats and other non-Serbs in the SAO Krajina was made impossible. The Trial Chamber has therefore concluded that the displacement of the Croat and other non-Serb population which followed these attacks was not merely the consequence of military action, but in fact its primary objective....

From August 1991 and into early 1992, these combined forces attacked several Croat-majority villages and areas, including Hrvatska Kostajnica, Cerovljani, Hrvatska Dubica, Baćin, Saborsko, Poljanak, Lipovača, Škabrnja and Nadin. Evidence shows the attacks were carried out to connect Serb villages and areas across non-Serb areas. During these attacks, the crimes of murder, destruction, plunder, detention, torture, and cruel treatment were committed against the non-Serb population..."