A helicopter carrying EU monitors Colonel Enzo Venturini and Lieutenants Marco Matta, Silvano Natale and Fiorenzo Ramacci of Italy and French Lieutenant Jean Loup Eychenne was shot down above Podrute by a Yugoslav Air Force MiG-21 on 7 January 1992. Everyone on board was killed.
Wreath-lying ceremonies were held today by delegations of Croatian state and local authroities at the monument erected in Podrute.
Croatian MP Dražen Srpak said at the ceremony that those European monitors had come to Croatia as afriends to help it to become an independent and free state.
He thanked the European Community for supporting Croatia in those hard times on its journey towards independence and towards the membership of the European Union and NATO.
A week after that tragic event, Croatia was officially recognised.
Addressing today's commemoration, Valeria Baistrocchi of the Italian embassy spoke about the solidarity of the European Community with Croatia, while French Ambassador Fabien Fieschi said that officer Jean Loup Eychenne was the first French serviceman of the 86 officers killed in the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.