Vukovar

"No one will harvest the fruits of victory because there are none; all that is left is just the bitter taste of a hangover," said a report published in Belgrade-based Vreme magazine after the fall of the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar on November 18, 1991.

Police said that tens of thousands of people participated in the 'column of remembrance' procession through Vukovar on Thursday, marking the anniversary of the fall of the eastern Croatian town on November 18, 1991.

Milos Cvetkovic's photographs of the siege and capture of Vukovar go on display at the EndzioHub gallery in central Belgrade on Thursday evening, 30 years after the eastern Croatian town fell to the Yugoslav People's Army and Serbian paramilitaries.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Croatian city of Vukovar into the hands of the former Yugoslav army. The city was captured after a three-month siege and virtually destroyed to the ground by round-the-clock bombing. The first war crimes in Europe after the end of the Second World War were committed here.

The Yugoslav People's Army, aided by Serb Territorial Defence forces and paramilitaries from Serbia, launched a full-blown attack on Vukovar in eastern Croatia on August 25, 1991, beginning a siege that would last for 86 days and leave around 3,000 soldiers and civilians dead before the town's defenders had to surrender.

Croatian police say they are investigating death threats made to Boris Dezulovic, a well-known Croatian journalist and columnist, over a column he published recently deriding the official cult surrounding Vukovar - the eastern town besieged and occupied by Serbs in the war of independence - whose provocative title has raised hackles.

The Humanitarian Law Centre said on Friday that Belgrade Court of Appeals' compensation awards to relatives of people killed by Serbian fighters at Ovcara Farm after the fall of the besieged Croatian town of Vukovar to the Yugoslav People's Army in November 1991 are inappropriately low and do not meet standards set by the European Court of Human Rights.

Media reported on Tuesday that the mayor of the Borovo municipality in eastern Croatia, Zoran Bacanovic, is under police investigation over his recent Facebook post about Operation Storm.

The Croatian Defence Ministry held a press conference on Tuesday to address public concerns after the fifth death of a Croatian soldier in recent weeks was reported on Monday.

Officials said that each case was unique and that the deaths, of which four were suicides, did not happen in military barracks or while they were on active service.

Zagreb-based NGO Documenta - Centre for Dealing with the Past and the Serbian National Council, which represents the Serb minority in Croatia, launched a media campaign on Thursday entitled 'Justice for Victims', supporting the government's plan to pass legislation that will grant benefits to civilian victims of the 1991-95 war.