Thirty years since the end of the 1991-1995 war in Croatia, victims are still being found.
In September, a Frenchman was among them – Jean-Michel Nicolier, a volunteer fighter in the Croatian defence of Vukovar from the Yugoslav army and Serbian paramilitaries.
Nicolier was killed in 1991, when the eastern Croatian town fell at the end of a three-month siege.
His body was one of three exhumed from a mass grave at nearby Ovcara farm, where some 260 soldiers and civilians – who had sought refuge in the local hospital – were killed by Yugoslav and Serbian forces.
Identified in October, Nicolier’s remains were buried at the Vukovar cemetery in November at a funeral attended by some 5,000 mourners.
The large turnout was another sign that, even in 2025, the 1990s war continues to have an impact on society in Croatia – where some 30 war crime trials also continue, and nationalists continue to use war-related sentiments for their own political advantage.
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