Berak killings

During the September 1991 Yugoslav Campaign in Croatia, JNA, local Krajina Serb forces and various paramilitary groups attacked and occupied several villages in Eastern Slavonia and Croatian Syrmia (modern-day Vukovar-Srijem County) during the JNA-led offensive against Vukovar and adjacent areas. The village of Berak fell to Serb forces, which included local Serb rebels from neighbouring villages as well as Scorpions paramilitaries, on 2 September 1991.[2]

Over the following months, until December 1991, Serb forces routinely abused, killed and expelled the Croat inhabitants who remained in the village. Croat civilians were killed in their homes, in the streets or in a detention camp set up by Serb forces during the occupation.[2] Croats were also tortured and several cases of rape occurred.[3]

45 Croats were confirmed killed during these massacres and a further 11 remain missing, many of the bodies were thrown into wells or were buried in mass graves.[2]

During the killings, the local Catholic Church of the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist was vandalised and used as a bar for the Scorpions paramilitaries to consume alcohol.[4]

In 2014, the county court in Osijek cleared Croatian Serb rebel commander, Gojko Eror, of having command responsibility for the killings, torture, disappearance and expulsion of Croat civilians, citing a lack of evidence. Dropping the war crimes charges, it modified the indictment to accuse Eror of a ‘criminal act of armed rebellion’.[1]