GREAT PROGRESS MADE IN EXHUMING AND IDENTIFYING WAR VICTIMS

ZAGREB, May 11 (Hina) - Great progress has been made in the exhumation and identification of the Homeland Defence War victims, head of the Croatian government's Missing and Imprisoned Persons' Office, Ivan Grujic, told homeland war veterans' minister Ivica Pancic and representatives of the state's Coordination of war veterans associations. The list of missing people still includes 1,485 names. So far, 3,231 people have been exhumed from 127 mass graves, and 2,601 have been identified, he said. By the end of this month, remains from Yugoslavia and Republika Srpska will be handed over to Croatia. Grujic reported that the Yugoslav side yesterday admitted that 78 people from Croatia's Danubian area, killed during the Serb occupation of the region, were buried in a Novi Sad cemetery. There are about 300 graves containing the bodies of people who we are seeking, but the Serbian side only admitted to the ones buried at the Novi Sad cemetery, he said. However, he added, we have information about the existence of such graves in other towns in Yugoslavia where people from Croatia were taken after the occupation of Croatia's eastern town of Vukovar. As regards Bosnia-Herzegovina, we are still looking for 90 people, mostly from the Posavina area, Grujic said. He added that during yesterday's negotiations with the Yugoslav side, an agreement was reached on a "monitoring" of exhumations. (hina) lml