and molested with any and all instruments at their captors' disposal - from crowbars to knives to electrodes. Those Croats who remained were forced to wear white arm bands as a sign of racial recognition. The Catholic church of St. Michael in Lovas, a 250-year-old building, was set on fire and later completely destroyed by explosives. The chapel of St. Florian at the Lovas graveyard was also set ablaze and devastated. The Catholic Church in Opatovac was pillaged and damaged. Later, in the center of Lovas, four adjacent family houses were unlawfully destroyed to make way for a new Orthodox church building. The buildings of the Hrvatski dom (community house, lit. "Croatian home") and the municipality were also destroyed. Numerous private barns, warehouses and other buildings were destroyed, the "Borovo" factory was burned, the agricultural company "Lovas" immovable property (driers, silo) was destroyed as well, while the movable machines were stolen and transferred to Serbia. In Opatovac, the oil company INA's dispatch centre was badly damaged by rockets, as was the VUPIK plant Opatovac-Pustara. A total of 1,661 people became refugees because of all this, of which 1,341 from Lovas and 320 from Opatovac. After the war, a mass grave was exhumed near the village cemetery, with 68 bodies, and another ten bodies were found in assorted graves around the village. These people were officially buried properly on March 21, 1998. As a result of the war, a total of 83 villagers of Lovas lost their lives and four are still listed as missing. In Opatovac, two people are dead, and one is missing. After the war ended, almost two thirds of the Serbs moved out of the villages, reducing their number to 106. The number of Magyars was cut by almost one half as well (77). There are also 335 fewer Croats in the municipality. References For history, see also: 1.) Brunšmid, Josip. 1902. "Nahođaji bakrenoga doba iz Hrvatske i Slavonije i susjednih zemalja." Vjesnik Hrvatskog arheološkog društva 6 (1902): 32–67. 2.) Bunčić, Maja. 2007. "Topografija pretpovijesnih nalazišta u Vukovaru i okolici." Vjesnik Arheološkog muzeja u Zagrebu 40(3): 35–72. 3.) Dimitrijević, Stojan. 1956. "Prilog daljem upoznavanju vučedolske kulture." Opuscula Archaeologica (Zagreb) 1: 1-67. 4.) Vinski, Zdenko. 1958. "Brončanodobne ostave Lovas i Vukovar." Vjesnik Arheološkog muzeja u Zagrebu 1: 1-34. 5.) Official webpage of the Lovas Archaeological Project - https://lovasproject.wixsite.com/website External links Municipalities of Croatia Populated places in Syrmia Populated