This year "The Week of Solidarity and Unity with the Church and People in Bosnia and Herzegovina" is being held from 21 to 27 March with the aim of collecting donations for and offering financial aid to people in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the previous four campaigns during the Lent seasons, a total of HRK 11.5 million was raised, and donations collected in this way were used for financing 161 projects in social welfare, education and as financial support to family-run enterprises throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatia's government also joined in those actions, donating a total of HRK 4.2 million.
The Caritas Croatia president, Varazdin Bishop Josip Mrzljak, said that the aim of this campaign was to help people to stay and live in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"We also want to contribute to eliminating prejudices and stereotypes against people in Bosnia and Herzegovina and against Croatian citizens of Bosnian origin," the dignitary said, adding that the drive was also designed to focus the attention of the political authorities and economic actors in Croatia to Croatia's political, moral and economic responsibility towards Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Banja Luka Bishop Franjo Komarica, who is the head of Caritas in Bosnia, said that the campaign also helped make the Croatian public and foreign diplomats more sensitive towards Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who he said had gone through trials and tribulations.
"Local and international power-mongers have been tolerating 20 years of injustice, bearing only the germ of future conflicts," the Banja Luka bishop said.
Out of 825,000 Croats who used to live in Bosnia and Herzegovina before the war, only 430,000 remain in the country, he said, adding that out of 220,000 pre-war Croats in what is now the Serb entity, a mere 11,200 are still there.
According to him, just two percent of the total international aid to Bosnia and Herzegovina is designated to the Croats.
Asked to comment on the ongoing problems in the establishment of the new government in the Bosnian Croat-Muslim entity (Federation), Komarica said that Bosnia and Herzegovina was arranged in a way that it could not normally function as a country.
"The equality of all three constituent peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be ensured," the dignitary said, calling for the coexistence of all the three peoples: the Croats, the Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) and the Serbs.