SERBIA-OPERATION STORM/DEMO Serbian nationalist burns Croatian flag as country mourns Operation Storm anniversary

Record ID: 144908

  • Title: SERBIA-OPERATION STORM/DEMO Serbian nationalist burns Croatian flag as country mourns Operation Storm anniversary
  • Date: 5th August 2015
  • Summary: BELGRADE, SERBIA (AUGUST 5, 2015) (REUTERS) CROATIAN EMBASSY / RIOT POLICE STANDING ANTI RIOT SHIELD READING (Serbian): "POLICE"
  • Embargoed: 20th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Serbia
  • Country: Serbia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA6Y2GSRYZFM5V1B4WIPBW25FLA
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The leader of the extreme right Serbian Radical party set fire to Croatian flags on Wednesday (August 5) as the country held a day of mourning for the 20th anniversary of "Operation Storm".
    Croatia rolled out tanks and waved flags to mark the 20th anniversary of the blitz that ended its independence war, while Serbia mourned the event as 'the biggest ethnic cleansing since World War Two'.
    Serbian ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj, who was freed on compassionate grounds by a United Nations war crimes court then ordered to return for violating the terms of his release, was joined by about 200 supporters to burn two Croatian flags across the road from the country's embassy in Belgrade. The building itself was guarded by riot police.
    "And what the Croats did, they expelled the whole Serbian population, and those who did not want to leave were killed. More than 220,000 Serbs were expelled and a few thousand killed, mostly women, children and old people," Seselj, charged in The Hague with inciting murder and ethnic persecution during wars in Bosnia and Croatia as Yugoslavia fell apart, said.
    After Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, its rebel Serbs, backed and armed from Belgrade by the late President Slobodan Milosevic, seized one-third of the territory while killing and expelling the local Croat population.
    Zagreb's revamped army retook most of the rebel-held lands in August 1995 in a four-day offensive code-named Operation Storm, which culminated with the capture on August 5 of the rebel Serb stronghold of Knin.
    Up to 200,000 ethnic Serbs fled as Zagreb's troops retook Croatian territory while advancing toward their borders and into Bosnia. Just a fraction of the ethnic Serbs have since returned to live in Croatia, which has meanwhile joined NATO and the European Union.
    Serbia declared Wednesday (August 6) a day of national mourning. At noon, wailing air raid sirens brought the country to a standstill for a minute in remembrance of those killed and, according to Serbia, expelled from their homes during "Operation Storm".
    The plundering of Serb property and random killings of elderly Serb civilians that took place in the immediate aftermath of the offensive tarnished Croatia's image and has remained a constant source of tension with Belgrade.
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