Croatia is on Saturday celebrating Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and Veterans Day in memory of the 1995 Operation Storm, with central commemorative events taking place in Knin, the Dalmatian hinterland.

Operation Storm was launched at 5am on 4 August 1995, and within the next 84 hours 10,400 square kilometres or 18.4 per cent of Croatia’s territory was liberated.

Croatian defenders entered Knin, that used to be the stronghold of Serb rebels, on 5 August and displayed a 20-metre-long Croatian flag on the fortress overlooking this Dalmatian city.

About 200,000 soldiers and police took part in the biggest operation of the Homeland War, of whom 174 were killed and over 1,400 wounded.

Operation Storm marked the end of the war in Croatia, created conditions for the peaceful reintegration of the eastern Danube River region, spared the northwestern Bosnian town of Bihac from the fate of Srebrenica, and enabled the return of refugees and displaced persons.

The liberation of Knin on 5 August carried special significance because the town had been the centre and symbol of the Serb rebellion and local insurgents who had been supported by the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) since the summer of 1990.

On 7 August 1995 Defence Minister Gojko Susak declared the operation over.

Some of the liberated towns in this operation were Gracac, Obrovac, Korenica, Slunj, Plitvice, Sveti Rok, Benkovac, Kijevo, Vrlika, Dubica, Glina and Petrinja.