ZAGREB, 14 August, 2022 - The 30th anniversary of the biggest POW exchange during the Homeland War was marked in Nemetin, eastern Croatia on Sunday by remembering the torture they suffered and the slow justice for those responsible.
Without Serbia's cooperation, it's unlikely the persons who mistreated and killed Croatian POWs in Serb-run camps will be prosecuted, said Zdravko Komšić, president of the Croatian association of former Serb-run camp inmates.
There will be no major progress as long as Serbia's current authorities are in office, he said at a monument to the 714 Croatian defenders, women, and civilians exchanged in Nemetin on 14 August 1992.
He said lawsuits had been filed against Serbia and the financial compensation of former inmates initiated, but that not one guard in the Serb-run camps had been held to account for the mistreatment and killing of inmates.
Komšić said Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and War Veterans Minister Tomo Medved had vowed the government would see that the former inmates were financially compensated.
MP Goran Ivanović said more than 500 of the exchanged persons had died in the past 30 years without receiving any compensation, while "the culprits exist and live amongst us."
The commemoration was attended by envoys of the prime minister, President Zoran Milanović, and parliament.
