ZAGREB: REMAINS OF 14 PERSONS WHO WENT MISSING DURING HOMELAND WAR IDENTIFIED

ZAGREB, Feb 24 (Hina) - Minister for Family and Veterans Affairs and Inter-Generation Solidarity Jadranka Kosor and Science, Education and Sports Minister Dragan Primorac, a DNA analysis expert, on Tuesday attended the identification of the remains of four Croatian Homeland war soldiers and ten civilians who went missing during the Homeland War. The identification was conducted in the Zagreb Forensic Institute with the DNA analysis.#L# The bodies of the Homeland War soldiers and civilians were exhumed at locations in the Danube River region and Banovina. After the identification process, Minister Kosor said a total of 137 mass graves had been discovered so far from which 3,427 persons had been exhumed. She added that before today's identification a total of 1,221 persons were still registered as missing. Kosor said that the government's Office for Missing and Detained Persons was now part of her ministry and that the Office's head, Ivan Grujic, was appointed her assistant. Grujic said another four to five years would take to solve the problem of detained and missing persons, adding that international organisation in Croatia dealing with this issue would stay in Croatia until 2010. (Hina) it sb