CROATIA PREPARING FOR IDENTIFICATION OF WAR VICTIMS IN DANUBE REGION

( Editorial: --> 5636 ) ZAGREB, Dec 3 (Hina) - Croatia is making preparations for the identification of possibly 5,000 war victims in the eastern Danube river region, Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Kostovic said in Zagreb on Wednesday. Kostovic spoke after a meeting with Dr. Bernd Brinkmann of the German Institute for Forensic Medicine and Dr. Joza Balazic of the Institute for Forensic Medicine of Ljubljana, on assistance to experts involved in the identification process. "We're now preparing for a more intensive process of identification," Kostovic told a news conference. Those to be indentified will include people who were killed and buried in mass graves, cemeteries or other places during Serb aggression on that part of Croatia. The Danube region has up to now been partly or fully out of control of the Croatian government so that the identification of numerous victims was impossible. With the restoration of its sovereignty over the region in January next year, Croatia will be able to do this job. "It is assumed that there will be up to 5,000 cases for identification, which corresponds to the number of human losses in that area," Kostovic said. Of that number, soldiers account for 45 per cent of the victims and civilians for 55 per cent. The fate of as many as 400 women is still unknown. In the total number of persons that needed to be identified, Kostovic included about 1,300 missing persons, those whose graves are known and those who are known to be dead but for whom it is not known where they were buried. A further 1,000 missing persons, mainly from the Banovina region of central Croatia, should be added to this number. Brinkmann said that in the event that identification was not possible with classic methods, an analyis of DNA would be carried out. However, that method was very slow. That identification is a long and complicated process was illustrated by the case of the mass grave at Ovcara where Serbs killed and buried the wounded and patients from the Vukovar hospital. Of 200 recovered bodies, 90 have been identified so far. "We are very satisfied with the pace and number of identified persons considering the fact that the bodies were buried six years ago," Kostovic said, referring to the identification of Ovcara victims. "From now on it will be more difficult." Kostovic said he believed the identification of victims in the Danube reigon would take years. (hina) vm jn 032151 MET dec 97