Remains Of 11 People Found In Mass Grave In Eastern Croatia

The remains of at least 11 people who died during fighting in Croatia in the 1990s were discovered in a mass grave, government officials said Tuesday

Zagreb, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 30th Nov, 2021 ) :The remains of at least 11 people who died during fighting in Croatia in the 1990s were discovered in a mass grave, government officials said Tuesday.

The site was found near the town of Vukovar in the country's east, where about 1,600 Croatian soldiers and civilians were killed during a three-months seige in 1991 during fierce shelling by then Yugoslav forces.

The country's veterans ministry said DNA tests would be used to establish the identities of the victims exhumed from the site uncovered at a garbage dump.

Ljiljana Alvir, who heads an association of war victim's relatives, said it was unclear whether the remains belonged to soldiers or civilians.

"People are inhumanely buried in this dump, but their discovery gives hope to all the families still searching for their beloved ones that they will finally find out the truth," said Alvir.

Local media reported that the grave was found with help of Croatia's intelligence agency.

Croatia is still searching for more than 1,800 people reported missing during the war that raged from 1991-1995, with hundreds on the list from the Vukovar area.

Known as "Croatia's Stalingrad", Vukovar was captured after a the siege by the Serbia-controlled Yugoslav army and Serb rebels.

The incident is considered one of the darkest episodes of the wars that accompanied Yugoslavia's collapse, when the town was practically razed to the ground and some residents massacred.

Serb soldiers bused some 400 wounded Croatians and other non-Serbs taken from the Vukovar hospital -- of whom some 260 were later executed at a secluded pig farm.

Croatia's proclamation of independence sparked the four-year conflict with Belgrade-backed rebel Serbs who opposed the move.

A UN war crimes tribunal later sentenced two top Serb officers, Mile Mrksic and Veselin Sljivancanin, to jail terms of 20 and 10 years respectively for their role in the massacre.

The conflict claimed 20,000 lives.