Skelani attack

During the Bosnian War, the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) besieged the Bosniak-held Srebrenica enclave, cutting off international humanitarian aid and causing severe food shortages that peaked in the winter of 1992–1993. In response to this starvation, Bosnian Muslim (ARBiH) forces occasionally raided nearby Serb villages in search of food.

On 16 January 1993, ARBiH soldiers, allegedly led by Naser Orić, attacked the villages of Skelani, a cluster of settlements in the Srebrenica region held by Bosnian Serb forces. According to findings referenced from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the Bosnian Muslim forces advanced almost to the border with Serbia before being stopped about a kilometer inside Skelani, due to an intervention by the Yugoslav Army and Territorial Defense units from the Užice Corps. During the attack, some Bosniak forces reportedly fired on Serb civilians who were fleeing across the border toward Bajina Bašta, Serbia.

Serbian sources describe dozens of Serb deaths in the attack, with reported figures ranging from about a dozen to 40, or as high as 65 killed, and around a hundred people wounded. These sources also claim that approximately 30 people were taken prisoner and beaten, and that two children were killed. The victims are alleged to have been civilians from Skelani village and its surrounding hamlets of Ćosići, Žabokvica, Toplica, and Kalimanići, in the wider Srebrenica region.

In 2005, the Government of Republika Srpska erected a monument in the village of Skelani commemorating 305 Serb victims, whom the monument's inscription describes as civilians killed during the 1992–1995 war. The monument states that 32 children were among those killed. This memorial reflects a broader wartime death toll attributed to the region rather than solely to the events of 16 January 1993.

The available record reflects two distinct framings of the event: an ICTY-derived account situating the attack within the wider siege of Srebrenica and the desperate conditions faced by its besieged population, and a Serbian narrative emphasizing civilian casualties among Serb villagers. The competing casualty figures — ranging from roughly a dozen to 65 killed — have not been reconciled in the available sourcing. No individual has been named as convicted, charged, acquitted, or exonerated specifically in connection with the Skelani attack in the material reviewed; the ICTY judgments referenced (concerning Radovan Karadžić and Naser Orić) address broader campaigns and command responsibility rather than a discrete adjudication of this single incident in the sources reviewed here.