Croatian Fighters Struggle to Fight Off Enemy

Vukovar, 17 October 1991

Siniše Glavašević reporting from Vukovar for Croatian Radio

Half an hour before negotiations started, the Vukovar Hospital was assailed by rockets fired from a multiple rocket launcher from the direction of Backa.

Just as a reminder: there are 229 severely wounded persons and seven newly-born babies in this facility.  As of last night, the hospital has been confronted by a new threat — an epidemic.

This is the third open attack on a medical facility in Vukovar within the last five days. Immediately before negotiations started, just under an hour and a half ago, the chief administrator at the Medical Centre in Vukovar, Ms Vesna Bosanac, lodged a loud complaint with the Minister of Health, Mr Andrija Hebrang, because all norms known to civilisation had been breached by the deployment of the multiple rocket launchersf rom Backa. In addition, this undermines the possibility of the Yugoslav Army defending its morality, to whom Mr Raseta is partial, when he states that regular military forces are not taking part in the massacre of Vukovar and its 35,000 inhabitants.

New prisoners apprehended last night between 22.00 and 2400 hours while attempting to gain access to the city with tanks and the support of a large number of infantry are testimony enough as to what is happening.

A member of one of the tank crews, Hrcan Stevan from Pancevo, has admitted much that Mr Raseta has denied.

At the same time, the village of Luzac finds itself under heavy tank and infantry fire. The Croatian defence is finding it difficult to hold out and can, unfortunately, not claim that time is on Vukovar’s side.

However, after discussions with the recently appointed commander of Croatian Forces for Vukovar, we have been informed that this alarming state does not mean that Vukovar will fall.

A large majority of people here still believe that Zagreb will not allow this to happen… .