Sijekovac killings
| Sijekovac killings | |
|---|---|
| Location | Sijekovac, Bosnia and Herzegovina |
| Date | 26 March 1992 |
| Target | Serbs |
| Deaths | 59 |
| Perpetrators | Croatian Defence Council, Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and other militia |
The Sijekovac killings, also called the Sijekovac massacre, refers to the unlawful killing of 59 Serbs, including 18 children, in Sijekovac near Bosanski Brod, Bosnia and Herzegovina on 26 March 1992, marking it as the first massacre of civilians during the war. The assailants were members of Croat and Bosniak army units.
The fighting in Posavina began in early March 1992, after Serbian Territorial Defense forces set up barricades in the town of Bosanski Brod and tried to seize the strategically important bridge linking the town with Croatia, prompting the local Croats and Muslims to form a joint headquarters, and to request assistance from the Croatian Army, based just across the border in Slavonski Brod. Following a ceasefire of several weeks the JNA and Serb militias once again attacked the town, launching a heavy artillery bombardment and sniper fire, and looting took place in the Croat quarter of the town.
The Croats retaliated by attacking the village of Sijekovac on the right side of the Sava River, across from Croatia. At the time, as the Bosnian War was starting, it was still populated by members of all three nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the initial reports in 1992, three members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina arrived by helicopter to investigate a reported "dozen killed civilians".
The detailed testimonies about the murders, tortures and rape that ensued after Croat units occupied the village were recorded by the ICTY but no one was ever indicted; instead all of the documentation was passed to courts in Sarajevo in 2004. The trial was underway in 2014. In July 2016 a written testimony of crimes emerged, documents allowing members of Croat units to sexually abuse imprisoned Serb women, signed by a local commander Ahmet Čaušević.
The authorities of Republika Srpska marked the site with a monument listing 47 casualties. Among those publicly implicated by the Serbian side are the 108th brigade of Croatian National Guard (by then renamed into the Croatian Army), the Intervention Squad of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Defence Forces.
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