In Vukovar There Are No More Streets, Squares and Houses

City Museum of Vukovar in Eltz's castle

9 November 1991

Jastreb, Commander of the Croatian Defence in Vukovar, has lifted the embargo on information, but the defence of Vukovar is about to fold.  Siniše Glavašević reporting for Croatian Radio

The third day since the implementation of the blockade on information ended tonight at midnight and was a last attempt by the Vukovar command to save the city from disinformation and policies which have been wrongly implemented as a result of which Vukovar has had to pay the highest dues in Croatia. Distrust, misunderstandings, or neglect have all contributed to the fact that Vukovar no longer has streets, or squares, or houses.

There are over two thousand children and fifteen thousand inhabitants, and there are also wounded and tired defenders, who are embittered by betrayal after having defended the city for 78 days with superhuman strength in order to preserve them ciity until the promised help arrives.

At this moment, the ruins of the hospital in Vukovar, which has been assailed by grenades and mortar and rockets, shelters four hundred and fifty wounded.

Medical teams do what they can to localise infection, which has started, developing as a result of the difficult conditions. Due to operations carried out over an extended period of time, they are burdened by the lack of other vital medication and sanitary supplies. The head of transfusion, Dr Edin Zujovic, was to speak about this for HTV tonight.

The city, which up until now symbolised Croatia in the eyes of the world, is almost non-existent.

The authors of the tragedy that is being enacted are definitely identifiable, and the entire world knows who they are. The goal of the enemy’s offensive is Vukovar, and they have shaken the city for around ten days. Attacks continued this morning as heavy artillery fired from a distance fell on the city, and then at 10.00 hours the Croatian line of defence was attacked at Luπac
and 1 Svibnja Street. At these points, a combined infantry and machinery attack was launched, and then around noon a socalled “net” was dropped from a plane onto Borovo Naselje.

It is difficult to enumerate all the crimes committed by the occupiers only today. But by highlighting that they attacked the most densely populated part of the city — Olajnica, where there are around three thousand people at the moment, and which is under heavy fire, and the hospital and numerous shelters, where there is no reason for action to be taken, then everything
becomes clear.

If Vukovar falls, and if its citizens die in the massacre, which is clearly the enemy’s plan, then the culprit for this should first be sought in Zagreb, and then further afield, because they still have not supplied replies to the numerous messages sent out.