Baluarte
05-07-2013, 11:16 PM
BELGRADE – Bodily remains of a total of 56 Serb victims that were killed in the 1995 Croatian army and police offensive code-named Operation Storm were recently exhumed at the city cemetery in the Croatian coastal city of Zadar.
Samples of all the exhumed bodies were taken to be identified by DNA tests, the Serbian government Commission for Missing Persons has said in a release.
The remains of 10 other persons were exhumed at the same site based on individual demands by victims’ families earlier.
The latest exhumation lasted six days, ending on May 3, one day after Chairman of the Serbian government Commission for Missing Persons Veljko Odalovic visited the site.
The exhumation at the city cemetery in Zadar is part of the process of exhumation of graves in the northern Dalmatia region in Croatia, where bodies of Operation Storm victims were buried.
The process begun with an exhumation at the city cemetery in Knin in 2001, where the remains of 301 victims were found, and continued as late as in November 2013, when a total of 31 bodies were exhumed at a cemetery in Sibenik.
The remains of 254 Serb victims have been identified and handed over to families so far, according to the release.
Nearly 2,000 Serbs were killed and more than 230,000 were expelled from Croatia during Operation Storm, conducted in the summer of 1995.
This offensive was the final act in the ethnic cleansing of more than 400,000 Serbs in the Croatian civil war, and nobody was held responsible for these crimes to date.
Samples of all the exhumed bodies were taken to be identified by DNA tests, the Serbian government Commission for Missing Persons has said in a release.
The remains of 10 other persons were exhumed at the same site based on individual demands by victims’ families earlier.
The latest exhumation lasted six days, ending on May 3, one day after Chairman of the Serbian government Commission for Missing Persons Veljko Odalovic visited the site.
The exhumation at the city cemetery in Zadar is part of the process of exhumation of graves in the northern Dalmatia region in Croatia, where bodies of Operation Storm victims were buried.
The process begun with an exhumation at the city cemetery in Knin in 2001, where the remains of 301 victims were found, and continued as late as in November 2013, when a total of 31 bodies were exhumed at a cemetery in Sibenik.
The remains of 254 Serb victims have been identified and handed over to families so far, according to the release.
Nearly 2,000 Serbs were killed and more than 230,000 were expelled from Croatia during Operation Storm, conducted in the summer of 1995.
This offensive was the final act in the ethnic cleansing of more than 400,000 Serbs in the Croatian civil war, and nobody was held responsible for these crimes to date.