Vukovar Off The Beaten Path

When the Serb forces took control of Vukovar on November 19th, 1991 one of the worst crimes happenned in Vukovar's hospital. After being attacked by hundreds of bombs the only working part of the hospital was its basement, with approximately 400 wounded patients, soldiers and hospital staff. They were to be evacuated from Vukovar according to the special agreement between Croatian government and Serbian/Yugoslav army.

What happenned is that around 260 people were taken by army trucks to a nearby pig farm in Ovcara, about four kilometers south of Vukovar. Patients were beaten up there, and approximately 200 of them were executed shortly afterwards and then buried in a mass grave.

The only witnesses of this massacre were the people that were forced to serve in Yugoslav army. It took several years of exhumations and investigations to gather enough evidence that formed the basis of the indictment at the Hague tribunal.

Many people hate large concrete structures. I guess in 1991 it was mostly hated by the members of Yugoslav army and Serbian forces.

This huge water tower, built in 1960s, was bombed day by day and as the months of siege of Vukovar went on it became the symbol of its destruction.

At the end of the three-months siege in 1991 there was no single house in Vukovar that had a roof. People were hiding in basements for months. Church and castle burned and almost vanished, both residential high-rises and church towers no longer stood up.

The only structure that still stood over the ghost city was this water tower.

It still stands with holes in its body, reminding everyone of the stupidity of the recent agression.