Dvor Primary School, Republic of Croatia

On 5 August 1995, during Operation Storm, some fifty Serb and Croat inmates from the Petrinja psychiatric hospital and home for the elderly were evacuated to the building of the former “1st of May” Dvor Primary School. Those who were physically able or had family members to help left the school and joined the refugee column heading towards BiH. The nine people remaining mostly suffered from serious physical and mental disabilities preventing them from seeking shelter outside the school. During the battle for Dvor on 8 August 1995, a little before 3 pm, a group of unidentified soldiers entered the school building and shot the remaining civilians there. A tenth victim was shot near the school, as well as the Ivelić couple, but the connection between these two crimes and the killings in the school has not been established.
The Danish battalion of the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces was stationed in the immediate vicinity, on the school playgrounds. In 2011, one Danish soldier admitted to having seen the crime with other members of the UN. Even after 30 years, the names of the perpetrators are still unknown. At the time, the Dvor area had a mixed presence of several different armies: the Croatian Army (HV), the Serbian Army of Krajina (SVK), the Fifth Corps of the Army of the Republic of BiH (ARBiH), as well as the presence of United Nations formations and those of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), which lead to all three involved armies being accused of the crime at the Dvor Primary School from different sides.

The Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor of Serbia established a case in 2011 for crimes against civilians committed in August 1995 in Dvor na Uni. A year later, the Serbian war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukčević, together with Croatian colleagues, started taking testimony in Copenhagen from four Danish soldiers and the reporter who published details about the crime in Dvor na Uni from August 1995.
The liquidation of people with disabilities during the Croatian Army’s Operation Storm in 1995 in the Dvor Primary School is the first criminal case in Serbia where the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor is employing the prosecutorial investigation procedure. It is the first case in which Serbian and Croatian prosecutors are jointly taking witness statements. No one has been prosecuted for the massacre at the school and no indictment has yet been raised, but Croatia and Serbia accuse each other of this horrific crime.