VUKOVAR:CANDLES LIT, WREATHS LAID IN MEMORY OF CAPTURE OF WOUNDED SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS

VUKOVAR, Nov 19 (Hina) - Delegations of Croatia's Armed Forces, Vukovar-Sirmium County, the town of Vukovar, and of associations of war veterans, as well as war veterans' Minister, Ivica Pancic, on Sunday laid wreaths and lit candles in front of the building of 'Borovo Commerce' in Vukovar, paying tribute to some 800 wounded Croatian soldiers and civilians who were taken from that building by aggressors on 19 November 1991, a day after Serb paramilitary troops, supported by the then Yugoslav People's Army, overran this Croatian town. Some of the wounded had been killed after they had been taken from the building and some had been transported to Serb prisons and concentration camps. Upon touring this memorial site, a few hundred citizens, walking through a few streets with lit candles and lanterns, departed toward the building in Trpinjska Road, which had housed the command of defence troops for Borovo Naselje in 1991. Serb rebels and JNA troops had taken Croatian freedom fighters and civilians from this building on this day nine years ago. Some of the captured people were killed on the same day in Borovo Selo and their bodies were thrown in the Danube River and some were transported in concentration camps. According to witnesses of the tragedy, Serb soldiers put some of the captured people in boats, pushed them into the river, and, staying on the bank, fired rockets from shoulder-mounted rocket launchers at them. About 200 Vukovar citizens visited this site by the Danube and threw a wreath into the water. Borovo Parish Priest, Friar Ante Perkovic, today said a Mass for the victims of the 1991 fall of Borovo Naselje. The Mass was held in front of the ruins of the war-demolished church. (hina) ms