Croatian NGO Identifies 2,353 War Casualties of Operation Storm, Majority of Whom Were Serbs, Civilians

Marking 27th Anniversary of Operation Storm (BETAPHOTO/HINA/Zvonko KUCELIN)

The Croatian non-governmental organization Documenta announced on July 28 that it had identified 2,353 casualties of the 1995 Croatian military and police Operation Storm and the ensuing period, most of whom were Serbs and civilians.

Research coordinator Nikola Mokrovic said at the presentation of the preliminary results that, from the list documenting 2,654 deaths in the period from July 25, 1995 to Jan. 14, 2001, 2,353 were confirmed or partially confirmed as casualties of war.

He said the majority of the casualties were Serbs -- 1,747, while 466 were Croats. There were 1,170 civilian casualties, 918 military casualties, while 228 of the casualties were of mixed status and 22 were police, the HINA news agency reported.

Among the Serb casualties, there were 1,055 civilians and 472 military casualties. Among the Croat casualties, 371 were military and 60 were civilians. 

The researcher Veselinka Kastratovic, who monitored war crime trials, commented that "in all these years there have been no new indictments and no new investigations have been opened, even though crimes certainly did happen."