After the fall of Vukovar, over 5,000 residents of Borovo Selo, Borovo Naselje and Vukovar surrendered to the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) forces on November 20, 1991 in order to be evacuated to areas under Croatian government control, but the JNA, treating them as prisoners of war, transferred them under military escort to Serbia where already in September 1991 it had set up several camps for Croatian prisoners, the FHP said in its application.
According to data gathered by the FHP, from the end of September 1991 until August 1992, over 5,000 civilian prisoners from the Danube region of eastern Croatia were detained in camps at Sremska Mitrovica, Stajicevo and Begejci, where they lived in inhuman conditions and were subjected to torture and degrading treatment by guards.
The 19 former prisoners represented by the FHP had spent between 14 and 34 days in the camps before being exchanged through the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The FHP recalled that the detention of Croatian civilians in the Stajicevo, Begejci and Sremska Mitrovica camps was cited as a war crime in the Hague tribunal's indictment against the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.