TOPUSKO:COORDINATION MEETING OF CRO GOVT,HUMANITARIAN ASSOCIATIONS

ASSOCIATIONS $ TOPUSKO, May 9 (Hina) - A two-day coordination meeting of representatives of the Croatian Government and of about 40 international humanitarian associations began in Topusko, 80 km south of Zagreb, on Thursday. The meeting, organized by the Croatian Government's Office for Refugees and Displaced Persons, discussed programmes to aid returnees to Croatian areas liberated during the "Flash" and "Storm" military operations and to displaced persons who will be returning to the Croatian Danubian area. #L# Head of the Topusko municipality, Milan Abramovic, told the participants in the meeting that during the nine months after the liberation about 2,500 persons had returned to the area. He stressed that Croatian soldiers who took part in the liberation had come across 120 citizens of Serb nationality who had stayed in their homes in the area, adding that these people now enjoyed civil rights as all other Croatian citizens. Djuro Brodarac, prefect of the Sisak County, said that the Serbs had destroyed about 10,000 homes and economic buildings during their aggression on Croatia. Head of the Government's Office for Refugees and Displaced Persons, Damir Zoric, thanked the representatives of the international humanitarian associations, benefactors and donors for providing unselfish help to displaced persons from Croatia as well as to refugees from other regions of the former Yugoslavia for whom Croatia had taken care of during the past five years, and appealed that they continue in doing so. The participants in the meeting also visited the area of the Glina municipality and the town of Petrinja, saw the destroyed houses and estates and talked with returnees. (hina) ha 091915 MET may 96