Binazija Kolesar, the head nurse in the hospital in 1991, spoke of a 19 November 1991 evacuation of civilians who had taken refuge in the hospital two days before, having left shelters in the area after the JNA had taken over the town.
Kolesar said the evacuation was organised by the JNA based on a list compiled by Zeljka Zgonjanin, an employee of the Croatian Red Cross in Vukovar. The witness added the hospital staff had nothing to do with the evacuation and that she did not know why Zgonjanin had compiled the evacuation list.
Kolesar said she did not see JNA soldiers or officers at the hospital on November 19 and that the first appeared the next day, when about 400 wounded were evacuated. She said that about 300 of those evacuated were taken by buses to a JNA barracks at Sajmiste and later to the Ovcara farm, one kilometre away, where at least 264 wounded persons and civilians were shot dead above a previously dug pit.
Two-hundred bodies were exhumed from the mass grave at Ovcara, of which 97 had been the wounded from the hospital, Kolesar said. She added that civilians too were taken out of the hospital on November 19 and that she unsuccessfully protested against that with Sljivancanin.
Replying to questions from prosecutors Mark Moore, the witness said the Vukovar hospital was not defended during the JNA siege from August to November 1991 and that she had never seen Croatian soldiers there.
Mrksic, Sljivancanin and Radic, also known as the Vukovar Three, are accused on individual and command responsibility for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war committed in Vukovar in 1991.
The trial resumes tomorrow.