January 1998

Belgrade, January 1998

Committee for Collection of Data

Humanity and International Law

B e l g r a d e

January 1998

St. Nicholas’ Cathedral in Vukovar was built between 1732 and 1737. Its woodwork was carved and the icons painted in the 18^th century and frescoe paintings were added in 1854.

In the course of the Second World War the church was damaged and looted but was subsequently rebuilt.

In the night of 18/19 September 1991 witnesses heard an explosion from the direction of St. Nicholas’ in Vukovar.

The following morning it was noticed that the church was severely damaged. The upper part of its bell-tower, the roof structure and the vault were destroyed. The inside of the church was totally demolished and burnt up.

When the priest from this church alerted the Police Station in Vukovar, officer on duty Mato Babić said he did not have anyone to send there. For this reason, there has been no investigation.

The two interrogated witnesses (the Committee records refer to them as Nos. 708/94-3 and 708/94-1) stated that the previous evening they saw 5 - 6 members of the National Guard Corps around the church.

The Croatian propaganda announced that the church was damaged by the members of the Yugoslav People’s Army.

In order to establish the cause of the damage - whether it was blown up from outside or mined from inside - the site was inspected by a Commission made up of the following experts from Belgrade: Radoslav Kostić Eng, Prof. Dr. Djordje Simić and Prof. Dr. Živojin Aleksić.

In their opinion the damage was caused by an explosion of a trotyl-based charge which was planted inside the church.

With regard to the damage of the Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas in Vukovar, the experts were requested to establish the following:

• Was the damage caused as a result of a fire or an explosion;
• Where did the fire or explosion start;
• If the damage was caused by an explosive device, was this the result of shelling or was the device planted inside the church.

Following their orders the experts visited the site on 8 and 12 September 1994, inspected and analysed the traces on the damaged edifice, took the necessary samples for analysis in their laboratory, photographed certain parts of the edifice and the traces which were left by the heat, made a sketch of the edifice and prepared in this connection the following:

F I N D I N G

In the early morning of 19 September 1991 a fire was seen engulfing the roof structure of the Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas in Vukovar. The first to catch fire was a part of the roof structure near the bell-tower and later on the fire spread to its other parts.

Firefighters either did a poor job or did not come at all, which is more probable, so that the fire lasted several days.

According to some witnesses, in the night preceding the fire they could hear sounds resembling an explosion as well as artillery shells and anti-hail rockets which were fired from different sides and fell around the church.

The Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas was built of solid material, i.e. brick, had a wooden roof structure and a tiled roof. The dimensions of the edifice are: length - 32 ms, width - 12 ms and height of walls - 18 ms. The bell-tower was 23 ms high.

The church has two entrances, one on the western side - the main entrance (men’s ) and another on the northern side (women’s, see sketch).

The ceiling is built of brick and comprises 4 arched planes between which there are three arch supports also made of brick with metal holders in the space of the attic and one girder near the western wall by the bell-tower.

To the right of the main entrance into the church is a staircase leading to the bell-tower. To the left of the same entrance there are two rooms which were used as storage rooms for the church paraphernalia. Identical rooms were also to be found above these premises.

By using the mentioned staircase one could reach the gallery through the bell-tower. The gallery was situated above the main entrance at the height of 6 ms and its dimensions were 10.40 to 8 ms. In the front part of the gallery, towards the altar, on a metal girder there was a railing 90 cms high and 12 cms thick made of reinforced concrete.

On the opposite side of this entrance, 6 ms from the eastern wall there was a wooden iconostasis and an altar behind it. One could enter the altar by two wooden steps.

All doors in the edifice, except those of the storage room are made of wood. The storage room has a metal door.

All window frames in this church are made of metal except those on the bell-tower which are made of wood.

The only way into the attic was possible from the bell-tower through a hole which did not have a door.

The roof structure is totally destroyed and together with the roof cover it fell inside the edifice. (photos 3,9,14,15 and 16)

The bell-tower is partially damaged and the steeple fell into the edifice (photos 1,2,3 and 5). The walls remained in place but the wall separating the space above the gallery and the staircase is fractured on the eastern and western sides (photos 4 and 32).

All doors are partially or slightly burnt. The railing on the gallery is demolished (photo 32).

All window panes are smashed and the frames are partially deformed (photo 9).

The vaults between the arch supports namely the second and the third from the main entrance are demolished and have fallen inside the church (photos 19,20,27,28,29 and 30).

The fourth vault above the altar is damaged, the diameter of the damage is 2ms; parts of it fell inside the church (photos 23 and 24) and the first vault above the gallery is dislocated but did not fall on the gallery (photos 32 and 33).

On the external side of the edifice above the doors, windows and other openings there are no signs of gases, i.e. soot (photos 1,2,3,4,5, and 6). This means that the fire did not start inside the church or that when the fire started it occurred with the normal air access.

Explanation: If the combustion of an inflammable material starts in the space with a limited quantity of oxygen (as is the case with the closed space of a church) then it occurs with the consumption of all oxygen and with an increased amount of smoke.

In such a room, in addition to an increase in temperature and heat the pressure rises as well. This pressure pushes smoke through the openings between the movable and immovable parts of doors and windows, and being lighter than air, the smoke goes up and since it comes from the warmer into the colder space, it is condensed on the walls above such openings and gray-black traces are formed. When the space has a bigger opening the above mentioned process does not occur. This may mean that the combustion started outside this space or that at the very outset the vaults fell down and allowed the entry of sufficient quantity of fresh air.

The eastern arched wall is damaged and fractured (photo 4). The plaster is off as well. In the immediate vicinity of this wall at the height of this damage near the church is the crater of the shell which caused the mentioned damage.

The roof structure is for the most part burnt up and together with the roof covering fell into the church or on the remaining parts of the vaults and girders. The damage of the roof, judging by the traces, was exclusively caused by the fire.

The bell-tower was damaged in part through the effect of heat and partly by mechanical force as a result of artillery shelling (photo 3, shots are shown by arrows, photo 10).

The damage caused by shells occurred later on, after the main damage of the church, because in these places there is no soot which should be found on these areas had this occurred prior to the fire.

All walls in the interior of the church, the altar area and the space for the congregation are soot-covered. The western wall on the gallery and its part between the door and the side southern wall are disjointed, all plaster is off, and the wall is in this part more and on the opposite side less dislocated toward the space of the staircase i.e. storage room (photo 32). This wall i.e. its bricks are cracked and plaster is off in the space shown by the arrow on photo 32. The walls and the ceiling above the staircase leading to the gallery are fractured too. Both the first and the second group of damages occurred as a result of the force of pressure.

The railing on the gallery which was made of reinforced concrete, 90 cms high and 12 cms wide, was broken as a result of the force of pressure of the shock wave and for the most part fell on the floor of the church (photo 32). The only part remaining is 1.5 ms long.

All metal window frames, except those on the gallery, remain undeformed. The frame of the window on the southern wall in the zone of the gallery was destroyed by the shock wave and dislocated from its jamb (photos 10 and 12 see arrow). The window on the opposite side, also on the gallery was dislocated from its jamb by the force of pressure coming from the direction of the gallery.

The vault above the gallery was dislocated by the force of pressure coming from the direction of the gallery, was lifted to the external part close to the attic but did not fall on the floor (photo 33).

The arch girder between the wall and this vault is fractured in its central part and at a distance from the vertical wall (photo 33).

All other arch supports are fractured in the central part at their highest point (photos 24,27,28,30 and 31).

The second and the third vaults are totally ruined and the fourth in part as a result of the shock wave which came from the direction of the gallery (photos 27,28,29,30 and 31). The last vault is partially damaged (the diameter of the hole is 2ms) while a part of it fell on the altar (photos 23 and 31).

Judging by the traces caused by the damage it was concluded that no damage could be caused by the heat of a fire but that all damage was caused as a result of a shock wave following the explosion of an explosive device.

On the basis of external and internal traces on the external and internal parts of the edifice (degree and side of damage, smoke, change of colour of the metal parts and their deformation) it was established that the damage was first caused by heat and the shock wave pressure following an explosion and then by fire.

On the basis of the mentioned traces it was established that the centre of the explosion was somewhere in the gallery, by the wall separating the gallery from the staircase at the height of 2 to 3 ms from the floor of the gallery (photo 32 arrow).

There are no similar traces of damage to be found anywhere else in the edifice.

The entire gallery was inspected in detail with the use of various instruments and the magnifying glass. No shrapnel originating from artillery shells could be found.

Samples were taken from places around the centre of the explosion where the remnants of the explosive could have remained (cracks, etc.) and sent to a laboratory for analysis in order to establish the type of explosive used.

The method of gas chromatography was used in the analysis of the explosive. The analysis established that the explosive used was TNT, better known as trotyl.

The absence of shrapnel traces indicates that this was a bare explosive charge. The explosive could only have been planted by a person.

The damage on the church is explained in the following way:

From the place of the explosion - the place in the wall where it is planted - the shock waves radiate spherically. The main (primary) wave which had an impact on the first vault and elevated it but did not ruin it was not of an adequate intensity. On reaching the floor of the gallery the shock wave was reflected from the floor liberating the Mach wave and interference with the main wave (creating a wave of stronger power) which ruined the second and the third vaults, whereas the fourth vault (above the altar) is less damaged because with interference the resulting wave lost in intensity due to a longer distance it had to travel.

Apart from shock waves, the explosion also creates heat waves of high temperature around its centre setting on fire every inflammable material.

In this particular case there were in this space horizontal wooden beams (openings in the wall where they used to stand are shown on photo 32) and, immediately above through the fractures on the vault caused by the explosion, the wooden roof structure near the bell-tower.

As the vault was instantly destroyed as a result of the explosion and the roof caught fire at the same time, the fire developed as it would in an open space.

Note:

Samples were taken for testing from several places on the edifice to establish whether any enhancing inflammable liquids were used to secure a more rapid spreading of the fire following the explosion.

No such liquids were found by means of the gas chromatography method.

On the basis of their findings the experts have given the following:

O P I N I O N

Prof. Dr. Djordje Simić,Eng.sgd.

Prof. Dr. Živojin Aleksić, sgd.

DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHS

Photos 14,15,16,17 & 18: