Croatian Serb leader: Process of searching for wartime missing has ‘slowed down’

NEWS 30.08.202117:41 0 komentara
Patrik Macek/PIXSELL

Serb National Council (SNV) leader Milorad Pupovac said on Monday on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared that over the past few years the search for  people who had gone missing in the war had seriously slowed down and that Croatia and Serbia had to work on cooperation in that matter.

“For the still many families searching for their loved ones, the day of restoring painful memories and the day of disappointment in the results of the search for the missing relatives. For all those dealing with the issue of the disappeared, this day is an opportunity to publicly become aware and admit the fact that the process of searching for the disappeared has seriously slowed down over the past few year. Especially last and this year,” he said in the press release.

He also added they wanted to raise awareness of the need to accelerate the process of searching for the disappeared, their exhumation and identification, regardless of their nationality.

According to him, 9,969 missing persons are still being searched for in the former Yugoslavia since the wars in the 1990s.

“Persons gone missing during the war in Croatia account for a significant part of this number, 1,968. Of that number, Croatia is searching for 1,850 (and of that, remains of 850 persons that haven’t been identified yet have been found). Serbia is searching for 1,606 missing persons (but requests haven’t been submitted for 647 of them in accordance with the criteria of the International Red Cross and they are on the ‘operational list’),” Pupovac said.

He stressed that the figures showed that the search for the disappeared was a matter of responsibility of both Croatia and Serbia and that the success of the process depended on cooperation.

“That cooperation has stalled in both defining the protocol on cooperation and in the necessary meetings at the appropriate political level. Because of that, the humanitarian side of the search for the disappeared and political relations between Croatia and Serbia  suffer,” the SNV president stressed.

The SNV considers that after three decades it is necessary to focus on the equality of the disappeared in accordance with the rules of the International Red Cross, regardless of the ethnic background, and that the issue of the disappeared should be approached as a humanitarian issue and a way to contribute to building trust in the relations between Croatia and Serbia.

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