Unidentified perpetrators have set on fire a Croatian flag hoisted next to a monument commemorating members of the Bosnian Croat forces, the HVO, killed in the 1992-95 war, near Zepce, central Bosnia and Herzegovina, media in Mostar reported on Sunday.

Local Croat officials have requested an investigation into the incident, saying that the attack was not only an attack on those who died defending their homes but on all people who “love the country they live in”.

They also said that they were disappointed and insulted by the perpetrators’ resenting the display of the flag of the Croatian people as a constituent ethnic group in the country, and that similar incidents would only intensify Croats’ efforts in the fight for a society based on the equality of its constituent ethnic groups.