Vukovar: divided by an alphabet

Vukovar is a town located in the eastern Croatia, close to the border with Serbia. During the Croatian War (1991-1995) the city was entirely destroyed by the Yugoslav Army and the Serbian paramilitary units. After the end of the war the Croatian government took control of the town again (1995): the town until that moment remained in the hands of the Serb-Croatian authorities. Since the moment Vukovar was again a Croatian town, the place became a Croatian national symbol of suffering and struggle in the war against the Serbian paramilitary units, the Serbian Croatian authorities and the State of Serbia. This means that Vukovar is some kind of sacred monument in the Croatian national discourse and mentality, whereupon, nothing related with Serbian heritage is allowed. The problem? Well, in Vukovar, according to the Croatian census of 2011, the Serbian population reaches 35% of the town's inhabitants, which means that according to the Croatian minority laws it must be compulsory to use the Cyrillic alphabet in the official institutions of the town. Nevertheless, the Defence of Croatian Vukovar, a group led by war veterans angered by the use of Cyrillic, and other rightist parties opposed directly to the introduction of Cyrillic in the Vukovar public administration. Therefore the situation between the two communities is complicated since 2013 when the Croatian government led by Zoran Milanović ordered to enforce the use of Cyrillic in Vukovar. Actually, the tensions between the Serbians of Vukovar and Croatians of Vukovar is high since the beginning of the war in 1991. This tension reflects specially in the education realm where the Croatian children studied separated from the Serbian students, even though the relations between both groups seem to be regular. The next report is about the controversy of the introduction of Cyrillic in Vukovar, but it also shows the national and ethnic division of the students in the Vukovar education institution.