CROATIA LOOKING FOR 2,497 MISSING PERSONS - GRUJIC

ZAGREB, Jan 10 (Hina) - The Croatian government commission for detained and missing persons said on Friday that it had resolved 350 cases in the past year. Croatia is now looking for 2,497 persons who have gone missing during the war, commission chairman Col. Ivan Grujic told a news conference in Zagreb. Grujic said that the 350 cases had been resolved in different ways - by exhumations of bodies in the areas liberated in two Croatian army operations in 1995, exchanges of prisoners and releases from Serb prisons and detention camps. Grujic specified that 830 bodies had been exhumed in the liberated areas, of whom 301 were on the missing persons list. 706 mortal remains had been identified and almost all identifications had been carried out at the Forensic Medicine Institute in Zagreb. He noted that 85 percent of identifications had been successful. Grujic also reported on the successful and comprehensive administrative reconstruction of the New City Cemetery in the eastern town of Vukovar. He said that there were 1,150 persons buried there, of whom 350 were unidentified. (hina) vm mm 101526 MET jan 97