VUKOVAR - VICTIMS AND DISPLACED VUKOVAR, Nov 16 (Hina) - The Serb aggression on and occupation of the eastern town of Vukovar on November 18, 1991 resulted in the death of several thousand soldiers and civilians and the expulsion of
22,000 Croats and other non-Serbs, while a dozen thousand people were imprisoned in Serb concentration camps in occupied parts of Croatia's territory, Yugoslavia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
VUKOVAR, Nov 16 (Hina) - The Serb aggression on and occupation of
the eastern town of Vukovar on November 18, 1991 resulted in the
death of several thousand soldiers and civilians and the expulsion
of 22,000 Croats and other non-Serbs, while a dozen thousand people
were imprisoned in Serb concentration camps in occupied parts of
Croatia's territory, Yugoslavia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. #L#
A total of 620 people from Vukovar County are still being traced,
and most of them went missing in Vukovar.
It is in this town that the largest mass grave in Europe after World
War II was discovered. In 1998, 938 bodies were exhumed from the
mass grave at the Ovcara farm outside the town. Only a couple of days
after entering Vukovar, Serb troops took some 200 patients and
staff from Vukovar hospital and executed them at Ovcara.
No one has yet been tried before the UN war crimes tribunal at The
Hague for those and many other crimes committed in Vukovar during
its occupation. Awaiting his trial before the tribunal is Mile
Mrksic, commander of a guard brigade from Belgrade, which
participated in the attack on the town.
The Croatian Association of Former Inmates of Serb Concentration
Camps in early September sued with the State Prosecution several
hundred people suspected of committing war crimes against
prisoners of war.
Association president Danijel Rehak said the association had
originally intended to file the suit with a Yugoslav court but gave
up the idea because it realised that the process might take years
and even decades.
According to the Association's data, around 8,000 non-Serbs,
mostly Croats, were imprisoned in Serb-run camps in 1991 and 1992.
Those are people who were imprisoned for more than 15 days, while
the number of those who were imprisoned for less than 15 days is much
bigger. According to the government's Office for Missing and
Detained Persons, around 300 people died in Serb camps, and the
Association claims that 30-40% of all inmates had died in prison.
The Vukovar County Prosecutor's Office has been collecting
information for several years in order to indict the former
Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) command for crimes in Vukovar.
The indictment would contain 198 names, including those of the
Hague indictees Colonel Mile Mrksic, Major Veselin Sljivancanin
and Captain Miroslav Radic, who commanded JNA troops during the
attack on Vukovar.
The county prosecution in Vukovar and Osijek has so far pressed
charges against more than 400 people for war crimes committed
during the occupation of parts of Vukovar County.
In the first ten months of 2002, the Vukovar County Prosecutor's
Office issued 13 war crimes indictments, Prosecutor Bozidar Piljic
said.
Since 1998, final sentences were imposed in eight cases, the
longest prison sentence being in the duration of 20 years.
No charges have been pressed for war crimes committed against Serb
nationals.
"Our goal is the prosecution of all war crimes committed by known or
unknown persons," Piljic said.
(hina) rml