The Scorpions (Serbian: Шкорпиони / Škorpioni) were a Serb paramilitary unit active during the Yugoslav Wars. The unit was involved in war crimes during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. After the wars, four members of the unit were found guilty of killing six prisoners during the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 and five were found guilty of killing fourteen civilians, mostly women and children, during the Podujevo massacre in March 1999.
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History
The Scorpions were founded in 1991 by Jovica Stanišić, the head of Serbia's State Security Services, who also had a secret relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency. It began as a regular unit of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). They identified themselves as Chetniks. Dozens of men joined the unit in mid-1991. Initially composed of Serbs from eastern Slavonia, the unit began its operations during the Battle of Vukovar in late 1991. It was led by two brothers, Slobodan and Aleksandar Medić, and was named after their favourite weapon—the Škorpion vz. 61. The unit was one of several hundred armed groups used by Bosnian and Croatian Serb military authorities for the purpose of terrorizing the non-Serb population in the Republika Srpska and the Republic of Srpska Krajina. In 1992, the Scorpions came under the command of the Serbian Army of Krajina.
The Scorpions became part of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs at some point in 1995. They participated in the Srebrenica massacre in July 1995, and filmed the execution of six Bosnian Muslims near the village of Trnovo, named The Scorpions, A Home Movie. In 2021, a mass grave containing at least 10 Srebrenica victims was confirmed near Kalinovik, within the Scorpions' area of operation.