PHONE LINE FOR WHEREABOUTS OF MISSING PERSONS OPENED TUESDAY

ZAGREB, Oct 12 (Hina) - A telephone line was opened at the Government Commission for Missing and Imprisoned Persons Tuesday to be used by citizens to report the whereabouts of missing people and mass and individual grave sites. The line is available 24 hours a day to take information provided by citizens who can remain anonymous, Commission's president Ivan Grujic said. He added there was also a possibility for people to provide information for further contacts or direct conversation with a Commission operator. "It is the humane obligation of every Croatian citizen, especially members of the Serb minority, to provide information at hand about missing or imprisoned persons via the open telephone line," deputy chairman of the National Trust Establishment Committee, Vojislav Stanimirovic, said. The National Trust Establishment Committee, with the cooperation of the Government Commission for Missing and Imprisoned Persons, initiated the 'open phone line' project to expedite the search for missing persons and the discovery of mass and individual grave sites, the Committee chairwoman, Vesna Skare-Ozbolt said. She added Croatia was still searching for the whereabouts of 1,674 persons and will not cease the search until the last person is found. The search process began in 1991 when we looked for 18,000 people, Grujic said. Although it is well-known that people from Croatia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and other countries do have some information about missing and imprisoned persons, the information is more difficult to come by these days, Grujic stressed. This was the reason for opening the help line, he said. (hina) lml jn