PM RACAN LAYS WREATH AT SLOVENE CEMETERY FOR WW2 VICTIMS

MARIBOR, May 14 (Hina) - Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan on Tuesday laid a wreath at Dobrava cemetery near Maribor, Slovenia, by a monument to Croatian soldiers and civilians - victims of WWW2's Bleiburg and Way of the Cross tragedies. #L# Racan will lay a wreath also in the Bleiburg field in Austria around noon. He is accompanied by Deputy PM Goran Granic, Education and Sports Minister Vladimir Strugar, and Croatia's Ambassador to Slovenia Celestin Sardelic. The Croatian delegation was received by Maribor mayor Boris Sovic. At the end of WW2, Croatian soldiers, fearing retaliation by the then Yugoslav federal army, decided to surrender to English Allies in Austria. They were followed by their families and numerous civilians. However, according to previous arrangements with the partisans, the Allies surrendered them to the partisans in the Bleiburg field on May 14-15, 1945. According to recent estimates, that exodus included about half a million Croats. Many were killed there over those two days. Later that May, the Yugoslav army returned over 20,000 captured Croats from the Austrian border to Yugoslavia. Many were killed or died of exhaustion during the long marches known as the Way of the Cross. (hina) ha