A GROUP OF 86 SERB RETURNEES ENTERS CROATIA

BAJAKOVO, June 24 (Hina) - A group of 86 Croatia's citizens of the Serb descent passed from Yugoslavia into Croatia via the Bajakovo border crossing on Thursday. These returnees left Croatia in 1995 during the operations for liberating central and southern Croatian areas from the Serb occupation. The arrival of the 86 Croatian Serbs is a part of implementing the Return Programme adopted by the Croatian National Sabor on June 26 in 1998. Most of these returnees will come back to Counties of Lika-Senj, Sibenik-Knin, Zadar, and Sisak-Moslavina, and several of those 86 persons will return to their homes in western Slavonia. According to the Office for Displaced Persons and Refugees, 11,005 Croatian Serbs returned to the country by June 1, this year, in line with this programme. Of them, 1,982 people came back in convoys organised by the UNHCR and the Croatian Government's Office for Displaced Persons and Refugees. Since the end of 1995 when the return of Serbs began from Yugoslavia, the Bosnian Serb entity and the Croatian Danube where they had found temporary accommodation, about 59,000 Serbs have come back to their homes throughout Croatia. (hina) ms