Siege of Dubrovnik

The Siege of Dubrovnik (Croatian: Opsada Dubrovnika, Serbian: Blokada Dubrovnika) was a military engagement fought between the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Croatian forces defending the city of Dubrovnik and its surroundings during the Croatian War of Independence. The JNA started its advance on 1 October 1991 and captured virtually all of the territory between the Pelješac and Prevlaka peninsulas on the coast of the Adriatic Sea by late October, except for Dubrovnik itself. The JNA attacks and bombardment of Dubrovnik, including the Old Town—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—culminated on 6 December 1991. The bombardment provoked a strong international condemnation of the JNA and became a public relations disaster for Serbia and Montenegro, contributing to their diplomatic and economic isolation and international recognition of the independence of Croatia. In May 1992, the JNA pulled back from Dubrovnik to Bosnia and Herzegovina, less than 1 kilometre (0.62 miles) from the coast in some places, and east of the city in order to turn over its equipment to the newly-formed Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS). During this time, the Croatian Army (HV) attacked from the west and pushed back the JNA/VRS from the areas west of Dubrovnik, both in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and linked up with the HV unit defending the city by the end of the month. Fighting between the HV and the Yugoslav troops east of Dubrovnik gradually died down.

The siege and a naval blockade by the Yugoslav Navy caused the deaths of 82–88 civilians. During the first three months of the offensive, the HV suffered the loss of 94 troops killed in action. By the end of 1992, when the entire region was recaptured by the HV in Operation Tiger and the Battle of Konavle, 417 HV troops had been killed. At the same time, the JNA had suffered 165 fatalities. The offensive displaced 15,000 refugees, mainly from Konavle, who fled to Dubrovnik. Approximately 16,000 refugees were evacuated from Dubrovnik by sea, while the city was resupplied by blockade evading runabouts and a convoy of civilian vessels. A total of 11,425 buildings suffered a certain degree of damage, and numerous homes, businesses, and public buildings were looted or torched by the JNA.

The JNA operation was a part of a plan drawn up by top JNA officers aimed at securing the Dubrovnik area and then proceeding northwest to link up with the JNA troops in northern Dalmatia via western Herzegovina. The offensive came on the heels of war propaganda in Montenegro, claiming that Croatian troops were about to attack and capture the Bay of Kotor and that the offensive was a "war for peace", while denying that the Old Town was targeted by the JNA. Montenegrin President Milo Đukanović apologized for the attack in 2000, eliciting an angry response from his political opponents and from Serbia.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted three JNA or Yugoslav Navy officers and turned over the fourth to Serbia for prosecution. The ICTY indictment stated that the offensive was designed to detach the Dubrovnik region from Croatia and integrate it into a Serb-dominated state through an unsuccessful proclamation of the Dubrovnik Republic on 24 November 1991. In addition, Montenegro charged six former JNA soldiers with prisoner abuse in the Morinj camp, but as of 2012 no final verdicts have been rendered. Croatia also charged several former JNA or Yugoslav Navy officers and a former Bosnian Serb leader with war crimes, but no trials have yet resulted from these indictments.