Kroatien
| 2011Background
Josipa Skendžić’s husband went missing during Croatia’s “Homeland War”. Her family—like countless others—never got the full truth about what happened.
On 3 November 1991, police arrested father-of-two ‘M.S.’ at the family home. He disappeared in custody after being taken to a nearby town.
His family claimed that other people of Serbian ethnic origin, like M.S., had gone missing or been killed near the town around the same time.
In the days after her husband’s arrest, Josipa made countless calls to the authorities, trying to find out what had happened to him. She fell into utter despair, turning to pills to dull the pain of getting no answers.
Josipa’s daughter, Tamara, was six when her dad disappeared. She remembered crying all the time. Her brother, Aleksandar, described the period as “horrible in which [I] cannot remember a single nice moment.”
Years passed with no news.
In 1998, a Croatian court presumed M.S. dead.
The following year, Josipa demanded that an official investigation be carried out. Initially she heard nothing, but the authorities later ordered police to conduct interviews, including with officers involved in her husband’s arrest.
But Josipa thought the police were not doing enough to find out the truth.
In 2005, she and her children won a civil lawsuit against the state, with a Croatian court acknowledging that the authorities were responsible for M.S.’s disappearance and presumed death. The family got compensation.
However, the authorities told Josipa the same year that they had not yet found those responsible for her husband’s disappearance.
Lettland
Polen
Bosnien-Herzegowina