04.08.2012.

Memorial service held to remember vicitims of Oluja campaign

In St. Mark’s Church a memorial service was held today to the victims of the "Oluja" Croatian campaign, 17 years ago, killing around 1,600 people, followed by an exodus of 200, 000 Serbs.

In addition a number of Belgrade citizens, relatives of the killed and exiled Serbs from Croatia, more than fifty officers and NCOs of the Army of Serbia and as many MA cadets, attended the service performed by His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Irinej, including the First Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Aleksandar Vucic and Chief Army Lt. Gen. Ljubisa Dikovic with their associates.

Our brothers and sisters who perished in the "Storm", were killed just because they were Orthodox, Patriarch Irinej said. All who were then exiled from their ancestral homes only because they were Serbs and of the Orthodox faith, found in our beloved Serbia consolation and refuge... After the suffering of our brothers in the southern Serbian province, we must say that the 20th century is the century of greatest suffering of Serbian people in their long history. Serbia today asks the world leaders the Serb people be treated justly and as other peoples and to ensure that those displaced return to their homes - said the Serbian Patriarch Irenaeus.

The ICTY has ruled that the "Storm" is a joint criminal enterprise aimed at exiling Serbs from the Krajina region. From the Knin region and Krajina more than 200, 000 people were exiled then. The kilometer-long convoys of Serbs on 4th August 1995, were sent from western Croatia to Serbia, and unfortunately 2000 people died in this operation in the cruelest actions of the Croatian army. They have forever remained in Croatia, as silent witnesses of centuries of Serbian presence in that country, although the resting place of many of them remains unknown.

Documentation and information center "Veritas" has recorded 1960 names of those killed and missing Serbs, 1205 civilians, including 522 women and 12 children. The entire Serb population left Knin then. Convoys of refugees on tractors and other agricultural vehicles through the area controlled by Bosnian Serbs in western and northern Bosnia headed for Serbia. To date, only a minority of individuals returned to Croatia.