BOROVO, Nov 19 (Hina) - A monument erected by the Ministry of War Veterans' Affairs was uncovered on Wednesday on the site of a mass grave on a farm outside the eastern town of Borovo.
BOROVO, Nov 19 (Hina) - A monument erected by the Ministry of War
Veterans' Affairs was uncovered on Wednesday on the site of a mass
grave on a farm outside the eastern town of Borovo. #L#
From April 17 to May 10, 2001, the bodies of 24 Croatian soldiers and
civilians were recovered from the mass grave on the IPK Osijek farm
by the Vukovar-Osijek road.
A total of 137 mass graves have so far been discovered in Croatia;
3,411 bodies have been exhumed, of whom 2,844 have been identified.
1,245 persons are still listed as missing, including 482 soldiers.
Several hundred residents of Vukovar visited the Borovo farm to pay
tribute to the people who had been killed during the war. After the
fall of Vukovar on 18 November 1991, Croatian military and civilian
prisoners were taken to Borovo where about a hundred of them were
executed and their bodies dumped into the Danube river by Serb
forces. A wreath was thrown into the Danube today in their honour.
The ceremony in Borovo was organised as part of ceremonies
commemorating the destruction of Vukovar in 1991 by Yugoslav army
and Serb paramilitary forces. About 1,600 Croatian soldiers and
civilians were killed and several thousand wounded, and 22,000
Croats and other non-Serbs were expelled.
Twelve years on, about 4,000 expellees have not yet returned to
their homes in Vukovar, while 456 soldiers and civilians from
Vukovar are still listed as missing.
(hina) vm sb