Tragic day from the Homeland War marked in Dalj

On the first of August, Croatia remembers the massacre of Croatian police officers in Dalj in 1991. After the resistance of the police station was broken, the exodus of the residents of nearby Aljmaš began. The only way out was by water on a bulk barge.

Croatian Television journalist Hrvoje Šimunović reported from Dalj. He pointed out that witnesses gathered there today who were children on August 1, 1991, as well as their parents.

“Their testimonies are still poignant and just as fresh as they were 32 years ago,” said Šimunović and recalled that at dawn on August 1, 1991, the brutal attack on the police station by the former JNA and members of the territorial defense together with other units began.

20 Croatian policemen, 15 members of the National Guard and four members of Civil Protection were killed.

Today, as part of the commemoration program, a wreath was symbolically laid in the Danube river in Aljmaš in the morning, at the place where everyone had to enter the barges that were their escape to freedom, and which transported them to Osijek. “Let us recall,” said Šimunović, “that after the attack on the police station, the persecution of the non-Serb population of this area, people from Dalj but also from Erdut, began.”

The central commemoration was held in front of the police station, and representatives of the state laid wreaths and lit candles, as well as numerous associations from the Homeland War, along with family members of the dead and survivors who participated and witnessed it. It was one of the first exoduses of the Croatian people during the Homeland War.

Witnesses of the tragedy on August 1, 1991

Josip Čičak, the only survivor from the Dalj police station on August 1, 1991, said that he did not think he would get out and that young people, between 19 and 25 years old, died there.

Irena Petrijevčanin Vuksanović, the representative of the Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister, pointed out that it is always difficult for her to come to Aljmaš because of the trauma she experienced there on the barge.

“But of course life goes on and as they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Although anyone who survived the trauma of the Homeland War, either as a child or as an adult, who lost someone close to them and who was left without everything overnight - carries certain traumas for life,” said Petrijevčanin Vuksanović.

Source: HRT