A group of neo-Nazis, accompanied by police, tried to intimidate residents of a Serbian village in Croatia
On the anniversary of the armed attack by Croatian forces on Serbian Borovo Selo, a small crowd of exhausted football fans marched through it chanting “Kill the Serb!”
This was reported by the 24sata portal, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
More than a dozen football fans laid a wreath at the monument to Croatian punitive forces killed on May 2, 1991 during a clash with Serbian militias in Borovoe Selo near Vukovar in Croatia. This year the anniversary coincided with the celebration of Orthodox Easter.
After which the crowd set off in a small column through the village, chanting “Kill the Serb!” and “Oh, Croatian mother, it’s time to put down the Serbs!” Typically, the survivors were accompanied by police cars.
Subsequently, however, the press secretary of the Vukovar-Srem police department, Dragoslav Zivkovic, said that ten provocateurs, “belonging to the same fan group,” were nevertheless detained after local residents contacted the police.
The armed incident in Borovo Selo occurred in 1991 after Croatia's separatist leadership passed discriminatory laws against Serbs and adopted a policy of intimidation and violence against local Serb residents.
In response, self-defense units began to form in a number of Serbian localities, including in Borovoe village in the vicinity of Vukovar. The defense of the village was headed by Vukashin Shoshkochanin.
Militias of Borov village in April 1991
As a result, on March 31, the first armed incident occurred between the Croatian police and the National Guard and the Serbian militias in Plitvice lakes.
In April 1991, an adventurer from Canada who professed radical Ustashe views, for which he was appointed Minister of Defense of Croatia and had never served in the army, Gojko Šušak and his accomplices personally fired at Borovo Selo with three German-made Armbrust missiles, one of which hit a residential building. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the process. After this, at the request of Shoshkocanin, volunteer units from Serbia arrived in the village.
For the celebration of May 1, Zagreb issued a decree according to which only Croatian flags were now allowed to be hung over administrative buildings and on the streets. However, the Borovo Selo administration did not obey and hung the Yugoslav flag.
Then, in order to restore their order, heavily armed Croatian policemen showed up in the village, who, while removing the Yugoslav flag, were attacked by Serbian militias - two of them were seriously wounded and captured, two were easily injured, and they managed to escape by car.
Croatian TV report about the punitive operation in Borovoe Selo. About the “valiant fight” of law enforcement officers against “terrorists”
The next day, May 2, Borovo Selo was attacked by almost two hundred police and national guardsmen in armored personnel carriers and armored buses, who opened indiscriminate fire on the streets and houses, as a result of which, according to various sources, from one to two local residents were killed.
In response, the Serbian militias counterattacked the attackers, causing them serious damage, in particular one of their Croatian commanders, Stipe Bošnjak, was killed during another attempt to remove the Yugoslav flag.
The fierce battle lasted for about four hours, neither side could achieve success, and the Croats began to take local residents hostage. As a result, the 12th proletarian mechanized brigade of the Yugoslav People's Army, consisting of 20 tanks and 12 armored personnel carriers, entered Borovo Selo and separated the warring parties.
As a result of the clash, 12 Croats were killed, 21 were injured, two prisoners were betrayed to their side on May 2. Serbian militias lost one person killed and four injured in this clash.
The organizer of the defense, Vukašin Šoškočanin, died under strange circumstances on May 15, 1991: according to the official version, this excellent swimmer drowned in the Danube after returning from Serbia.
Vukašin Šoškocanin talks on Serbian television about the attack on Borov Selo
Until 1998, Borovo Selo was part of the unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina, after which, under UN pressure, it was “peacefully reintegrated” into Croatia. The new authorities erected a monument to the 12 dead Croatian punitive forces there, which is regularly attacked.
Desecrated memorial to Croatian punitive forces
Despite the fact that local Serbian leaders recognized the unacceptability of vandalism, they noted that the inscription “died at the hands of Serbian terrorists” insulted local residents.
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