After the then Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) occupied Ilok and nearby villages of Bapska, Sarengrad and Mohovo in mid-October 1991, about 8,000 residents of Ilok left the town on 17 October 1991. Columns of people, escorted by observers of the European Community Monitoring Mission, walked towards the town of Lipovac, 40 kilometres of Ilok.
During the peaceful reintegration in 1997, Ilok and other Croatian areas in the Danube basin were reintegrated into Croatia's constitutional and legal system. A majority of pre-war locals have returned to Ilok.