A religious service was held in a Serb Orthodox church in the village of Kusonje near Pakrac, in western Slavonia, as part of an event commemorating the suffering and exodus of the Serbs of the western Slavonia and Bilogora regions.

For the past seven years, local Serb ethnic minority councils in western Slavonia have been commemorating all innocent victims of the 1991-95 war during which, they say, more than 100 villages were abandoned or burned down while many residents who stayed in their homes for the arrival of the Croatian Army were killed or are still unaccounted for.

“We did not gather here today to judge but to remember with prayer all the victims and to call on state institutions to re-examine their work on prosecuting the perpetrators,” said Nikola Ivanic, head of the Pozega-Slavonia County Council of the Serb Ethnic Minority (VSNM).

He called on all people who could have information on persons gone missing in the war, regardless of the victims’ ethnicity, to come forward and help state institutions.

Delegations of the Pozega-Slavonia County VSNM and the Serb National Council today also visited the locations in Kusonje where civilians were killed as well as the locations at Pakracka Poljana and Marino Selo where civilians were detained during the 1991-95 war.