page_title: Croatian War of Independence
section_title: Escalation of the conflict
hierarchical_section_title: Croatian War of Independence / Course of the war / 1991: Open hostilities begin / Escalation of the conflict
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of military operations in eastern Slavonia, Croatia, September 1991 - January 1992 This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Geography &amp; Map Division under the digital ID g6841sm.gct00210. This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information. العربية&#160;| čeština&#160;| Deutsch&#160;| English&#160;| español&#160;| فارسی&#160;| suomi&#160;| français&#160;| עברית&#160;| magyar&#160;| italiano&#160;| македонски&#160;| മലയാളം&#160;| Nederlands&#160;| polski&#160;| português&#160;| português do Brasil&#160;| русский&#160;| slovenčina&#160;| slovenščina&#160;| Türkçe&#160;| українська&#160;| 中文&#160;| 中文（简体）‎&#160;| 中文（繁體）‎&#160;| +/−
context_page_description: The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia —and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat operations in Croatia by 1992. In Croatia, the war is primarily referred to as the "Homeland War" and also as the "Greater-Serbian Aggression". In Serbian sources, "War in Croatia" and "War in Krajina" are used.
  A majority of Croats wanted Croatia to leave Yugoslavia and become a sovereign country, while many ethnic Serbs living in Croatia, supported by Serbia, opposed the secession and wanted Serb-claimed lands to be in a common state with Serbia. Most Serbs sought a new Serb state within a Yugoslav federation, including areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina with ethnic Serb majorities or significant minorities, and attempted to conquer as much of Croatia as possible. Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991, but agreed to postpone it with the Brioni Agreement and cut all remaining ties with Yugoslavia on 8 October 1991.
context_section_description: In July, in an attempt to salvage what remained of Yugoslavia, JNA forces were involved in operations against predominantly Croat areas. In July the Serb-led Territorial Defence Forces started their advance on Dalmatian coastal areas in Operation Coast-91. By early August, large areas of Banovina were overrun by Serb forces.
  With the start of military operations in Croatia, Croats and a number of Serbian conscripts started to desert the JNA en masse, similar to what had happened in Slovenia. Albanians and Macedonians started to search for a way to legally leave the JNA or serve their conscription term in Macedonia; these moves further homogenized the ethnic composition of JNA troops in or near Croatia.
  One month after Croatia declared its independence, the Yugoslav army and other Serb forces held something less than one-third of the Croatian territory, mostly in areas with a predominantly ethnic Serb population. The JNA military strategy partly consisted of extensive shelling, at times irrespective of the presence of civilians. As the war progressed, the cities of Dubrovnik, Gospić, Šibenik, Zadar, Karlovac, Sisak, Slavonski Brod, Osijek, Vinkovci, and Vukovar all came under attack by Yugoslav forces. The United Nations (UN) imposed a weapons embargo; this did not affect JNA-backed Serb forces significantly, as they had the JNA arsenal at their disposal, but it caused serious trouble for the newly formed Croatian army. The Croatian government started smuggling weapons over its borders.
  In August 1991, the Battle of Vukovar began. Eastern Slavonia was gravely impacted throughout this period, starting with the Dalj massacre, and fronts developed around Osijek and Vinkovci in parallel to the encirclement of Vukovar. In September, Serbian troops completely surrounded the city of Vukovar. Croatian troops, including the 204th Vukovar Brigade, entrenched themselves within the city and held their ground against elite armored and mechanized brigades of the JNA, as well as Serb paramilitary units. Vukovar was almost completely devastated; 15,000 houses were destroyed. Some ethnic Croatian civilians had taken shelter inside the city. Other members of the civilian population fled the area en masse. Death toll estimates for Vukovar as a result of the siege range from 1,798 to 5,000. A further 22,000 were exiled from Vukovar immediately after the town was captured.
  Some estimates include 220,000 Croats and 300,000 Serbs internally displaced for the duration of the war in Croatia. In many areas, large numbers of civilians were forced out by the military. It was at this time that the term ethnic cleansing—the meaning of which ranged from eviction to murder—first entered the English lexicon.
  On October 3, the Yugoslav Navy renewed its blockade of the main ports of Croatia. This move followed months of standoff for JNA positions in Dalmatia and elsewhere now known as the Battle of the barracks. It also coincided with the end of Operation Coast-91, in which the JNA failed to occupy the coastline in an attempt to cut off Dalmatia's access to the rest of Croatia.
  On October 5, President Tuđman made a speech in which he called upon the whole population to mobilize and defend against "Greater Serbian imperialism" pursued by the Serb-led JNA, Serbian paramilitary formations, and rebel Serb forces. On 7 October, the Yugoslav air force attacked the main government building in Zagreb, an incident referred to as the bombing of Banski dvori. The next day, as a previously agreed three-month moratorium on implementation of the declaration of independence expired, the Croatian Parliament severed all remaining ties with Yugoslavia. 8 October is now celebrated as Independence Day in Croatia. The bombing of the government offices and the Siege of Dubrovnik that started in October were contributing factors that led to European Union (EU) sanctions against Serbia. On 15 October after the capture of Cavtat by the JNA, local Serbs led by Aco Apolonio proclaimed the Dubrovnik Republic. The international media focused on the damage to Dubrovnik's cultural herit
caption: The JNA breakthrough in eastern Slavonia, September 1991–-January 1992
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