TOPUSKO, May 18 (Hina) - The Croatian Phoenix, an association gathering the families of missing and detained Croatian soldiers, elected Darinka Pavicic its new president in Topusko, south of Zagreb, on Saturday.
TOPUSKO, May 18 (Hina) - The Croatian Phoenix, an association
gathering the families of missing and detained Croatian soldiers,
elected Darinka Pavicic its new president in Topusko, south of
Zagreb, on Saturday. #L#
Submitting a report on the association's work, a former vice-
president Katica Zadro said that the association would continue
investing efforts to shed light on the fate of 1,369 soldiers whom
it had been trying to locate for 11 years. The association today
also elected its senior bodies.
According to Zadro, the remains of 3,334 soldiers and civilians
were exhumed from 132 mass and individual graves until the
beginning of 2002, of which the remains of 2,721 were identified.
Since 1994, 1,683 of 3,052 missing and detained persons were
discovered, of whom 1,151 were identified. The government's Office
for Missing and Detained Persons has been looking for 1,369
persons, of whom 1,131 went missing at the start of the Serbian
aggression in 1991, Zadro said.
The families of missing soldiers and civilians expect a more
efficient identification, Zadro said, adding that the
establishment of the Office for Missing and Detained Persons had
facilitated the search, which was nevertheless slow.
The head of the Office for Missing and Detained Persons, Ivan
Grujic, spoke about the latest agreement with Belgrade on the
search for missing persons. He dismissed objections that the
identification with the help of DNA method was slow and
inefficient. So far, more than 2,700 persons have been identified
with the help of this method, 374 bodies were identified last year
and another 211 will be identified by August 1, Grujic said.
(hina) rml