The head of the Documenta - The Centre for Dealing with the Past NGO, Vesna Terselic, and former Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO) activist and journalist Drago Pilsel warned on Friday that investigations into crimes committed by Croatian soldiers during Operation Storm in August 1995 near the town of Udbina have not yet been completed.

The events mentioned refer to killings of civilians in the villages of Komic and Poljice, near the town of Udbina in central Croatia.

Noting that very few war crimes have been brought to trial in Croatian courts, Terselic said that although the crimes committed in Komic and Poljice were reported to the police immediately after they had been committed, the investigation is still ongoing to this day.

She added that based on HHO data, about 20 residents had remained in the village of Komic during Operation Storm, and that a group of Croatian soldiers entered the village with tanks and armoured vehicles, shooting and burning houses.

Immediately before the Croatian army entered the village, some of the residents managed to escape to a nearby forest, while the elderly and the disabled who were left behind were shot dead or burned in their homes.

She added that the precise number of victims has not been determined, but it is assumed that at least six people were killed in the incident, and according to some sources as many as nine.

Terselic added that the crime was reported to the police and Croatia’s State Prosecutor’s Office (DORH), but this did not help expedite the case.

Pilsel, who had visited these villages in the aftermath of Operation Storm as a reporter, said that it would be easy to determine which army units were in that area at the time the event happened, and added that it was concerning that Croatian authorities had not shown any interest to visit these villages.

He talked about a witness testimony he recorded and his own experience in the area, and added that it was absolutely inconceivable to him that the bodies of a mother and son, 93-year-old Sava Lavrnic and 65-year-old Petar Lavrnic, were left lying in the driveway covered in snow for nearly six months, only several kilometres away from the town of Udbina.

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