A commemoration, including a performance by students of the Vukovar general-programme secondary school, was held outside the Vukovar Hospital on Thursday at the beginning of events commemorating Vukovar Remembrance Day and the 19th anniversary of the destruction of that eastern Croatian city in the 1990 attacks of Serb paramilitaries and the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).
The commemoration was attended by a large number of local residents and people from all over the country, including President Ivo Josipovic, Parliament Speaker Luka Bebic, and Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, as well as the head of the Croatian Bishops' Conference, Djakovo-Srijem Archbishop Marin Srakic, members of parliament and representatives of associations of war victims and veterans and political parties.
Later in the day, participants in the commemoration, led by former inmates of Serb-run concentration camps, were expected to go in a procession through the streets of Vukovar to the Homeland War Victims Memorial Cemetery, 5.5 kilometres from downtown Vukovar, to lay wreaths and light candles.
So far, 854 Homeland War victims have been buried at the Memorial Cemetery. Of that number, 408 are Croatian soldiers and 306 civilians killed in the war, 99 are deceased disabled war veterans, one is a deceased war veteran, and 40 are members of families of soldiers killed or gone missing in the war.
Split-Makarska Archbishop Marin Barisic will serve Mass for soldiers and civilians killed or gone missing in Vukovar.
