Visiting Brisevo in the Prijedor area, Leko told reporters his arrival to Bosnia, to attend a two-day conference on the strengthening of peace and reconciliation in Banja Luka, was motivated by the wish to encourage returns.
"Unfortunately, no data source on returns is optimistic and the least Croats have returned to this area, both in percentage and absolute number," he said, adding that this was an important message for both Croatia and Bosnia.
"Our position in Croatia is that everyone who wants to must be able to return and the state must ensure the minimum return conditions," Leko said, adding that the Banja Luka conference would focus on that.
In Brisevo, he paid his respects to Croat civilians killed in the village in 1992. About 1,700 Croat Catholics lived in the parish before the 1992-95 war and nearly all were driven out. Serb militia attacked the village on 24-25 July 1992, killing 68 civilians, including the elderly and children. Seventy-two civilians were killed in the parish. The oldest victim was 14 and the oldest 81.
Reverend Ilija Arlovic said no one had been held to account for the crime, and that there had been no substantial assistance to returnees.
Drago Zivkovic of the Hrvatski Dom local association said concrete assistance arrived from the incumbent Croatian government, which set aside HRK 1.15 million for the renovation of the electricity grid.
There has been no other aid from either the municipal, entity or state authorities in Bosnia, he told Hina.
Most Brisevo residents live in Croatia and other Western countries.
One of them, Ivo Atlija, testified before the Hague war crimes tribunal in 2002 in the trial of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Milomir Stakic for crimes against non-Serbs in the Prijedor area. He said Serb forces had killed 14 women, two boys under 16 and four disabled persons, among others in Brisevo, after which they set 68 houses and the local church on fire.
Stakic was sentenced to 40 years in jail.