PRESIDENT MESIC BESTOWS MEDALS ONTO VUKOVAR SOLDIERS, HOSPITAL

VUKOVAR, Nov 18 (Hina) - During his visit to Vukovar where he led a state delegation to the marking of the 10th anniversary of the fall of Vukovar, Croatian President Stjepan Mesic bestowed the Prince Domagoj medal onto the defending soldiers of Vukovar and the Nikola Subic Zrinski medal onto the Vukovar General Hospital for their immeasurable contribution in the creation of the modern and sovereign Croatia. On behalf of the soldiers, the last commander of the eastern town's defence, Branko Borkovic, received the medal, while hospital director Vesna Bosanac received the medal on behalf of the hospital at the helm of which she was during the years of war. Thanking Mesic for the medal, Borkovic said Vukovar soldiers were receiving it "as a sign of christening after a difficult way of the cross, as a sign of everything they have been through .. and as a sign of gratitude and good will for everything given by those who died and those who survived". Doctor Bosanac recalled the difficult conditions under which the hospital functioned during the war, and stressed that its staff treated all wounded in a humane manner, whatever their nationality. Serbia and Croatia fought a war in 1991 after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Vukovar was besieged and bombed by the Serb- majority Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and local rebel Serbs who opposed Croatia's independence in a battle which killed and wounded thousands and wrecked most of the city on the Danube River. After the JNA and Serb paramilitary forces invaded the town, they kidnapped 255 Croats and other non-Serbs from the Vukovar hospital, executed them and buried their bodies in a mass grave near the Ovcara farm. Some 22,000 Croats were forced to flee. On November 18, 1991, exactly a decade ago, Vukovar became the first European town after World War II to be completely destroyed in war. (hina) lml