Reign of Terror: How Serb Fighters Avoided Justice for Croats’ Murders

Andrija Matin wept as he said goodbye to Kristic and to his grandchildren, although neither he nor she knew that they would never see each other again.

Erdut, the small town where they lived in eastern Croatia, was no longer a safe place for anyone, let alone children.

Erdut is right on the border with Serbia and had been under attack since June 1991, as the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army, JNA, fought a war against independence-seeking Croatia. The JNA occasionally fired rockets at the Erdut area from the Serbian province of Vojvodina on the opposite bank of the Danube.

A day after Kristic left Erdut, her sister, Senka Majer, and their mother, Vera Matin, also left. On that same day, August 1, 1991, the JNA occupied Erdut, practically without resistance. After the takeover, the territory was put under the control of the self-proclaimed Serbian Autonomous District of Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem.

But Andrija Matin, a recently retired railway worker, did not want to leave his home in Erdut. After Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in June 1991 and armed conflict erupted, he did not join any party or wear any uniform.

He was afraid, Kristic and Majer recalled, but trusted the JNA to protect him. After all, it was called the People's Army, so it couldn't be against the people, he reasoned.

"He expected that everyone would return home when the army came," Majer said, speaking to BIRN at the house in Erdut where their father and mother lived before the war.

But during the occupation of Erdut by the JNA and Serbian paramilitaries, 2,500 people were expelled, according to documents from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY.

The notorious Serbian...