On the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic spoke to the families of the missing persons in Croatia in the central Croatian city of Karlovac.
Croatia is looking for 2,525 persons, including 1,922 unsolved cases dating back to the 1991-95 War.
“The Great Serbia aggression inflicted a lot of wounds on Croatia, but the biggest one of all is the wound of the missing. We have repaired material damage, we have buried our victims with dignity and we can honour them, but the fate of the missing still remains unsolved. This is a moral debt we, as a country, owe to our missing and their families,” the president said.
She said that was why she had insisted on renewing political dialogue with Serbia, and invited Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to Croatia in February.
After the visit, certain small steps have been made but much more needs to be done, as there is not one justified reason to delay solving this problem, she added.
She said she would continue to insist on the fate of the missing as the key element of further dialogue and full normalisation of relations between the two countries, as well as Croatia’s support for Serbia’s joining the EU, because “the truth about the missing is a political minimum, and no one in Croatia should ever settle for less.”
The investigation of mass or single graves of missing victims has intensified since 2016, War Veterans’ Minister Tomo Medved said.
To date, 128 possible unregistered sites in 12 counties have been found, test excavations were done on 100, resulting in the finding of 85 victims. After those and other remains were identified, 108 victims were given dignified burials.
Medved added 1,508 missing persons were being traced for, and for 414 there was information that they were killed, but not where their remains may be.
In order to resolve that problem, steps were taken in bilateral cooperation with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, but the key to the solution is in Serbia. Medved suggested a new cooperation agreement, which would be adjusted to current context.
We want data from Serbia. They have that data as well as records, and one of the basic requirements for opening Chapter 23 in Serbia’s EU accession negotiations will be full cooperation in tracing the disappeared, he said.
Medved said he could not speculate on Serbia’s motives for concealing those locations, but “the fact is that they have records on mass grave sites.”
The head of an association of detained and missing Croatian soldiers’ families, Ljiljana Alvir, said Medved’s ministry was looking for 1,922 persons who disappeared in the 1991-95 war.
We ask of Croatian institutions to exert bigger pressure on Serbia and a take firmer stance with regard to Serbia’s EU accession negotiations, because the key to finding the missing is in Serbia, she said.
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