CROATIA-OPERATION STORM/FILE Croatia will mark 20 years since operation "Storm"

Record ID: 145080

  • Title: CROATIA-OPERATION STORM/FILE Croatia will mark 20 years since operation "Storm"
  • Date: 30th July 2015
  • Summary: ZAGREB, CROATIA (FILE) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SHOTS) VARIOUS OF CROATIAN PRESIDENT FRANJO TUDJMAN SURROUNDED BY CHEERING CROWD/CROWD SINGING AND DANCING
  • Embargoed: 14th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA76ZQUDT0T2WMK11EKUT5GXZU8
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    On Tuesday (August 4) Croatia will hold a military parade in capital Zagreb to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Operation Storm, a four-day military offensive which ended the 1991-95 war in Croatia.
    On the morning of August 4, 1995, the Croatian army unleashed a wide artillery and infantry offensive to seize back territory held for four years by rebel Serbs. It began with shelling the main Serb towns in the U.N.- protected Knin Krajina region, a horseshoe of mountain terrain stretching from south of Zagreb almost to the Adriatic.
    The offensive, which involved 100,000 men, was launched from Sisak and Karlovac in the north and made gains around Otocac and Gospic further south.
    Soon, the Krajina Serb capital of Knin was burning under a steady Croatian artillery and missile onslaught that sent citizens into air raid shelters. Krajina Serbs retaliated with their own barrage.
    The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) threatened air strikes to protect U.N. peacekeepers after a Danish soldier was killed and two Polish troops were wounded by deliberate Croatian tank fire on U.N. posts.
    In less than four days the Croatian army retook the whole territory of Krajina, causing some 200,000 Krajina Serbs to flee to neighbouring Bosnia and Serbia. The capture of the rebel stronghold of Knin on August 5 was the highlight of the operation and was later declared a national holiday in Croatia.
    Serbia regards the operation as an act of ethnic cleansing, as only a fraction of Serbs who fled the territory were later allowed to return to their homes in Croatia.
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