GRUJIC: 2 800 BODIES EXHUMED FROM 100 MASS GRAVES IN CROATIA

( Editorial: --> 4500 ) ZAGREB, June 29 (Hina) - A total of about 2,800 victims were exhumed from more than 100 mass graves in the former occupied Croatian areas, the president of the Government Commission for Missing Persons and Imprisoned, Ivan Grujic, said Monday. This is a proof that the aggressor committed ethnic cleansing and genocide, Grujic added. "The purpose of exhumations and identifications is to return dignity to the victims, to find the missing and show what happened," Grujic said at a panel discussion of the Homeland War Associations in Zagreb. Grujic recalled the exhumation of a mass grave at the Vukovar New Cemetery, which is probably the largest mass grave in Europe after World War II. During talks with Belgrade, Croatian representatives received files on 1,096 victims buried at the cemetery after the fall of Vukovar so it was known that between 1,000 and 1,200 people were buried there. The exhumation started on April 28 and lasted until June 26 this year, Grujic said adding the exhumed burial sites were classic mass graves and not, as Belgrade has been claiming, "sites of humane burial". Grujic further said that 938 bodies were exhumed at the New Cemetery. This discrepancy can be explained since in 1992 and 1993 the bodies from the mass grave at the Vukovar New Cemetery were exhumed and transferred elsewhere, for example near the Vukovar city stadium where exhumation is underway. About 70 bodies are expected to be exhumed at that location, Grujic said. Of all the bodies exhumed at the New Cemetery 580 were identified. The ethnic structure of victims speaks clearly about the nature of the conflict, Grujic said. According to the Commission's data, there are 481 Croats, 36 Serbs, 27 Ruthenians, 14 Hungarians, 11 Ukrainians, five Bosniaks, and one Romanian, Slovak, Pole, Slovenian, German and Gypsy. Preliminary identification of another 120 bodies has been carried out and it is to be confirmed by the victims' families. About 200 bodies were transferred to the Zagreb Institute for Forensics and it is expected that at least half of them will be identified. Along with the victims from the New Cemetery, another 23 victims were exhumed at different locations in the Vukovar area and fifteen were identified. Exhumations have continued, Grujic said. When stating these numbers, one should bear in mind that every victim was a small world made of wishes and hopes and that none of that exists today, Grujic said. (hina) rml 291913 MET jun 98