The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) charged several Serbian and Croatian Serb officials, including Slobodan Milošević, Jovica Stanišić, Franko Simatović and Goran Hadžić, for their alleged involvement in the killings.

The Yugoslav People's Army (Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija – JNA) confiscated the weapons of Croatia's Territorial Defence (Teritorijalna obrana - TO) forces to minimize resistance.

[1] On 17 August, tensions escalated into an open revolt by Croatian Serbs,[2] centred on the predominantly Serb-populated areas of the Dalmatian hinterland around Knin,[3] parts of the Lika, Kordun, Banovina and eastern Croatia.

[5] After a bloodless skirmish between Serb insurgents and Croatian special police in March,[6] the JNA itself, supported by Serbia and its allies, asked the Federal Presidency to give it wartime authorities and declare a state of emergency.

Milošević, preferring a campaign to expand Serbia rather than to preserve Yugoslavia, publicly threatened to replace the JNA with a Serbian army and declared that he no longer recognized the authority of the Federal Presidency.

[7] In early April, the leaders of the Croatian Serb revolt declared their intention to integrate the area under their control, known as SAO Krajina, with Serbia.

[12] The first artillery attack against ZNG units in Erdut occurred on 25 July, when 24 mortar rounds were fired by the JNA from the Serbian province of Vojvodina on the opposite bank of the Danube.

[14] The unit deployed approximately a hundred troops, stationed in a facility normally operated by Osijek water supply utility, earlier that month.

[17] Conversely, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) witness of the event claimed that the JNA fired against civilian homes in Erdut unprovoked.

[27] Five more non-Serb civilians were arrested by the Croatian Serb TO and the SDG in the village of Klisa on 11 November, one in Bijelo Brdo and one in Dalj, and taken to Erdut for interrogation.

Three more civilians, including the family members of those killed on 10 November, were arrested and executed by Croatian Serb TO and SDG personnel in mid-November.

[32] In August 1995, following Operation Storm, Croatia regained control of territories previously held by Croatian Serb forces, with the exception of eastern Slavonia—the region around Erdut.

The SDG systematically plundered villages in the region, turning the area into a source of oak lumber, crude oil and wine for Ražnatović to sell in Serbia,[21] and in Erdut itself.

The charges include war crimes of persecutions, extermination, murder, imprisonment, torture, inhumane acts and cruel treatment, deportation, forcible transfer of population, wanton destruction and plunder of property in Erdut and elsewhere.

On 31 July 2012, Croatian authorities indicted Božo Bolić, the commander of the police station in Erdut in late 1991 and 1992, and charged him with unlawful arrests and abuse of civilian population, who were later turned over to the SDG.