Thousands join commemorative march through Vukovar

The participants in the walk were local residents, as well as war veterans, families of war victims and numerous citizens who arrived from other parts of Croatia and from Bosnia and Herzegovina

This year, the government's representatives, including Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and a few cabinet ministers were also in this commemorative procession. They called for paying homage and praying for the heroes and victims of the Vukovar.

War Veterans' Affairs Minister Tomo Medved said that all of them arrived in Vukovar to pay tribute to the victims of the Homeland War.

President and Supreme Commander of the Croatian Armed Forces Zoran Milanovic paid tribute to the sacrifice of Vukovar on Thursday by laying a wreath and lighting a candle at the Memorial Cemetery and the Ovcara mass grave site. On Friday he is expected to attend the Skabrnja commemorative events.

Vukovar Remembrance Day is observed in memory of 18 November 1991 when the city's defence lines were broken after a three-month siege by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitaries. The besieged city was defended by around 1,800 members of the National Guard Corps, police and volunteers of the self-organised Croatian Defence Force (HOS), organised into the 204th Croatian Army Brigade.

After the ravaged city fell into the hands of the JNA and Serb paramilitaries, around 22,000 local Croats and members of other ethnic groups were expelled and several thousand Croatian soldiers and civilians were taken to Serb-run prison camps.

Numerous crimes were committed against the defence forces and civilians, including a massacre of 200 soldiers and civilians from the Vukovar Hospital who were taken from the hospital on November 19 and killed at a former farm at Ovcara, outside the city, and buried in a mass grave.

According to data from the Vukovar Hospital, 1,624 Croatian soldiers and civilians were killed and 1,219 were wounded during the siege of the city. Around 3,600 Croatian soldiers and civilians were killed in the aggression on and subsequent occupation of the city.