VukovarVUKOVAR, Aug 14 (Hina) - The 13th anniversary of the release of morethan 600 Croatian prisoners who were kept in Serb-run concentrationcamps was marked on Sunday by wreath-laying ceremonies at the Ovcarafarm and the memorial
cemetery of Homeland Defence War victims in theeastern city of Vukovar, as well as by a commemorative serviceconducted by a local Catholic parish priest who was detained for twomonths in the prison of Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia.
VUKOVAR, Aug 14 (Hina) - The 13th anniversary of the release of
more than 600 Croatian prisoners who were kept in Serb-run concentration camps
was marked on Sunday by wreath-laying ceremonies at the Ovcara farm and the
memorial cemetery of Homeland Defence War victims in the eastern city of
Vukovar, as well as by a commemorative service conducted by a local Catholic
parish priest who was detained for two months in the prison of Sremska
Mitrovica in Serbia. The event was held to commemorate 14 August
1992 when over 600 Croatians, who were detained in Serb camps and prisons, were
exchanged and transferred back to Croatia at the village of Nemetin near the
eastern city of Osijek after an all-for-all exchange was agreed.
According to figures released by the Croatian Office for Missing and
Detained Persons, about 8,000 people were detained in Serb-run prisons and
camps in the early 1990s and 300 of them died there.
Today's commemoration was organised by local associations of war
veterans and the association of former inmates of Serb concentration camps,
whose leader Danijel Rehak said that about 30,000 people had passed through
those camps according to the society's statistics.