DAY OF MOURNING MARKING THE 31ST ANNIVERSARY OF CRIMES AGAINST SERBS DURING OPERATION STORM

BANJA LUKA, AUGUST 4 /SRNA/ - A Day of Mourning is being observed in Republika Srpska to mark the 31st anniversary of the suffering of Serbs during the Croatian military-police Operation Storm, in which more than 1,904 Serbs were killed, and more than 220,000 were expelled from the regions of Banija, Lika, Kordun and northern Dalmatia.

The Day of Mourning is being observed in accordance with the Law on the Observance of Days of Mourning, the Republika Srpska Government's Public Relations Bureau said in a statement.

The Republika Srpska Government adopted the decision at a telephone session held on July 21.

The Day of Remembrance for all Serbs who were killed or expelled during the 1995 Croatian-Muslim pogrom against Serbs from the Republic of Serbian Krajina and Republika Srpska will be commemorated in Banjaluka and Mrkonjić Grad.

The criminal Operation Storm began on August 4, 1995, with an offensive launched by the Croatian Army and police, along with units of the Croatian Defense Council /HVO/, in the regions of Banija, Lika, Kordun and northern Dalmatia, during which more than 220,000 Krajina Serbs were expelled from their ancestral homes.

According to the updated records of the Veritas Documentation and Information Centre, 1,904 Serbs were killed or went missing during and after the operation, including 1,250 civilians, about three-quarters of whom were over the age of 60.

The victims also include 10 children under the age of 14 and 566 women, about four-fifths of whom were over 60 years old, representing a particularly grim record of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, according to Veritas.

In its February 2015 ruling, the International Court of Justice classified Operation Storm as an act of ethnic cleansing, but not genocide, although global experts in the field maintain that the operation exhibited all the characteristics of genocide.