Crime in Medari / Operation Flash

Operation “Flash” was carried out by Croatian Army and Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Croatia on May 1 and May 2 May, 1995 in the then occupied part of Western Slavonia. Upon the completion of the operation, this part of the territory was reintegrated into the constitutional and legal order of the Republic of Croatia.

Operation “Flash” has enabled refugees from parts of municipalities of Pakrac, Novska and Nova Gradiška, to return in their own homes.

On the first day of the operation, on May 1, 1995, around 6 am, in the village of Medari which was then a part of municipality of Nova Gradiška, Croatian soldiers killed twenty-two civilians, out of twenty-four of them who were in the village at that moment. Two young girls survived the crime, only because they were recognized and protected by a Croatian soldier.

Out of the twenty-two killed victims of this crime, three of them were children (brother and sister, Goran and Gordana Vuković, at the age of eleven and eight, and their sister, Dragana Vuković, at the age of seven), while 11 of them were women.

Documenta – Centre for dealing with the past