On 17 October, all men aged 18 to 60 were ordered to report for a meeting, but were detained overnight instead on the pretext that someone had fired shots in the village the previous night. The detainees were beaten, and otherwise abused that night. Approximately 20 were released in the morning, and the rest were told that they were assigned to grape harvest duty. The civilians walked out of the village under a military escort. One of the civilians was killed by the guards, before the group reached a point within of the Vukovar–Tovarnik road, where they were ordered into a cloverfield at gunpoint. The men were told to hold hands and sweep their feet in front of them across the ground. The JNA had previously placed land mines in the field. Several mines were set off, while the troops guarding the civilian detainees fired at the men in the field. The survivors were then forced to retrieve the dead and injured and clear the remaining mines. Out of 50 civilians forced into the minefield, 21 were killed in the minefield itself. The number of persons wounded by mine explosions or gunfire is variously reported as 14 or 15. Three more civilians were killed in Lovas by the end of November.