VUKOVAR CROATS LAY WREATHS IN MEMORY OF VICTIMS FROM BOROVO SELO

VUKOVAR, Nov 19 (Hina) - Representatives of the City of Vukovar, Croatian Army, Interior Ministry, and associations of Homeland War victims on Friday laid a wreath in front of the damaged Borovo Footwear Factory building in the Vukovar neighbourhood Borovo Selo, in memory of some 800 wounded soldiers and civilians who were killed or abducted from the factory's Borovo Commerc plant by the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitaries on November 19, 1991. Speaking to the gathered, including a large number of witnesses to the war events in the Borovo Commerc plant, the president of the Federation of associations gathering the parents of killed soldiers, Josip Jugec, said Vukovar Croats would never be able to forget the suffering they had gone through. Vukovar Croats suffered most at the hands of their fellow Serb citizens who reported against them. "Nowadays many of them work in Croatian schools, hospitals and other institutions, under the patronage of Europe", said Jugec, adding the Vukovar executioners had to be brought to justice as soon as possible. Carrying lanterns, which were also placed at the shelter in the Borovo Commerc plant, Vukovar Croats walked toward Trpinjska Road, where the command of Borovo defence forces was located in 1991. From that location, soldiers and civilians captured in the Borovo Commerc plant were taken into different directions, and many of them ended up in Serb prisons and camps. A memorial service for all Homeland War victims was held at St Joseph's church by Friar Ante Perkovic. In line with a decision by the Vukovar military command, the Borovo Commerc shelter was in late October 1990 transformed into a hospital for lightly wounded soldiers and civilians. After they fire to the building by shelling it, the JNA on November 19, 1991 seized the shelter, after which the patients, both soldiers and civilians, of whom some were killed on the spot, were taken in trucks and buses to different destinations. Participants in the marking of the tragedy in the Borovo Commerc plant today also lit candles in front of the municipality building and the primary school. (hina) rml