Ovčara was a Serbian transit camp for Croatian prisoners during the

Croatian War of Independence The Croatian War of Independence) and (rarely) "War in Krajina" ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Рат у Крајини, Rat u Krajini) are used. was an armed conflict fought in Croatia from 1991 to 1995 between Croats, Croat forces loyal to the Governmen ...

, from October to December 1991, and the location of the

Ovčara massacre The Vukovar massacre, also known as the Vukovar hospital massacre or the Ovčara massacre, was the killing of Croatia, Croatian prisoners of war and civilians by Serb paramilitaries, to whom they had been turned over by the Yugoslav People's Ar ...

Prison camp

Ovčara is located 5 kilometers southeast of the city of Vukovar. It is a desolate stretch of land where the Vukovar agricultural conglomerate built cattle-raising facilities after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. These facilities are storage

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

s, which are fenced and can be easily guarded. The hangars are made of brick and have a big sliding front door, which includes a small door. The Serbian forces turned Ovčara into a prison camp in early October 1991. Aside from the massacre, 3,000 to 4,000 men prisoners were temporarily held in the camp before being transported to the prison in Sremska Mitrovica or to the local army barracks, which was the transit point for the Serbian

detention camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

s of

Stajićevo Stajićevo (; ) is a village in Serbia. It is located in the Zrenjanin municipality, in the Central Banat District, Vojvodina province. The village has a Serb ethnic majority (96.29%) and its population numbering 1,999 people (2002 census). Name ...

, Begejci and others. Some of the Serb forces were led by

Željko Ražnatović Željko Ražnatović (, ; 17 April 1952 – 15 January 2000), better known as Arkan (), was a Serbian warlord, mobster and head of the Serbs, Serb paramilitary force called the Serb Volunteer Guard during the Yugoslav Wars, considered one of the ...

— also known as "Arkan" — who directed much of the pillaging and murder that occurred in Vukovar during and after the siege.Eric Stover and Gilles Peress: The Graves (1998), (Scalo. Zurich), p. 108. At the end of the

battle of Vukovar The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of Vukovar in eastern Croatia by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), supported by various paramilitary forces from Serbia, between August and November 1991. Before the Croatian War of Independence the Bar ...

and in the prelude to the Vukovar hospital massacre, numerous men were brought to Ovčara, including wounded patients, hospital staff and some of their family members, former defenders of Vukovar, Croatian political activists, journalists and other civilians.ICTY Outreach Programme: JUSTICE FOR THE VICTIMS OF "OVČARA"
/ref>
/ref> One member of the group standing trial in Belgrade for the executions testified that "among the prisoners, there were quite a number of civilians and wounded persons with bandaged wounds and casts", including a pregnant woman. Several witnesses at the trial, former JNA soldiers, also confirmed there were civilians present at Ovčara. The archive of the city government of Vukovar has some testimonies of Ovčara prisoners. When they came out of the buses, they had to run between two rows of Serbian soldiers and other forces, who beat them with rifle butts, clubs and other blunt weapons. The beatings continued in the hangars; at least two men died from those beatings.Profile: The 'Vukovar Three'
/ref> Ovčara was closed on December 25, 1991. Its total count was around 200 men killed and 64 missing prisoners.

Massacre

On November 18, 1991, which was the day when the

ended, the Serbian forces captured the Vukovar hospital. They gathered the wounded fighters, civilians and hospital staff, put them in buses and transported them to Ovčara. The prisoners were brought together, massacred, executed by firearms, thrown in a trench and covered by earth. The Ovčara

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of exec ...

lies northeast from the facilities, one kilometer from the Ovčara-Grabovo road. It belongs to the category of the mass graves with the remains of

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

and civilians executed in the immediate vicinity or at the very place of the grave.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ovcara camp Serbian concentration camps in the Yugoslav Wars Serbian war crimes in the Croatian War of Independence Vukovar-Syrmia County