Speaking to reporters, the chairman of the Croatian commission, Colonel Ivan Grujic, and his colleague from Serbia and Montenegro, Gvozden Gagic, announced closer cooperation in tracing persons imprisoned or gone missing in the Homeland War, stating that they had agreed on concrete activities.
The remains of seven identified persons exhumed in Serbia and Montenegro will be taken over by the Croatian authorities this month, Grujic said, announcing exhumations at a number of locations in the neighbouring country. He pointed to the importance of the recent declassification of the 1991 documents from the Vukovar Hospital, which had been held in the archives of the Army of Serbia and Montenegro, adding that they would help trace imprisoned and missing persons from the area of Vukovar.
The Croatian commission today harmonised criteria with the commission from Serbia and Montenegro and the International Committee of the Red Cross on the number and status of persons sought by the two countries, Grujic said. The lists of missing persons contain the names of 1,142 persons held missing by Croatia, 935 Croatian Serbs who went missing in 1995, and 440 nationals of Serbia and Montenegro.
The chairman of the Serbia and Montenegro commission, Gvozden Gagic, said that lists of missing and imprisoned persons were not final.