CROATIA STILL SEARCHING FOR 2 197 PEOPLE

ZAGREB, Oct 23 (Hina) - The Croatian government adopted at Thursday's session a report on the work of the Commission for Missing and Imprisoned Persons. The report pertains to the Commission's work from 27 November 1996 to 21 October 1997. The issue of the whereabouts of missing and imprisoned Croatian soldiers and civilians has been the state's main humanitarian issue, Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Kostovic said. For the first time since negotiations have begun, Yugoslavia submitted to the Commission identification protocols which have helped to discover the whereabouts of 353 persons which had been kept as prisoners of war or were declared missing. It had been established that 61 people were alive, in the Croatian Danube river region or in third countries. Unfortunately, 292 people had been found out to be dead, the Commission's chairman, Ivan Grujic, said. During the period to which the report pertained, the mortal remains of 475 persons had been exhumed, out of which 397 people had been identified. The remains of 197 people had been exhumed from mass graves and 278 from single graves, Grujic added. Kostovic said that a Croatian group of experts had, with agreement from the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, exhumed the remains of 68 persons from a mass grave in Lovas (Danubian region of eastern Croatia). So far, 67 of these people have been identified. Croatia continues to search for 2,197 people who have went missing or have been kept as POWs since the Serb aggression on Croatia. (hina) lm jn 231644 MET oct 97