Croatia held military parades on Monday to commemorate the 29th anniversary of Operation Storm, the 1995 offensive that recaptured territory from Serbian forces.
The offensive, which triggered a exodus of hundreds of thousands of people, is commemorated annually. This year, the anniversary was celebrated in Knin with speeches by the leaders of Croatia and military displays, including a flight of France’s recently acquired Rafale fighter jets.
The neighbor Serbia considers the Storm offensive a war crime that resulted in the exodus of the majority of Serbs living in Croatia, a process that resulted in the death of hundreds of people. In Serbia on Saturday, thousands of people, including families of the victims, gathered in the small town of Loznica to mark the anniversary with a remembrance ceremony.
From Croatia, the Croatian Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovicsaid that his country is celebrating freedom, which allowed them to live today in “a free and democratic country.”
The war began in 1991 after Croatia declared independence from the Serbian-led former Yugoslavia, triggering a rebellion by the Serbian minority that took control of about a third of the country’s territory. Croatia recovered the lands in the offensive 1995 and, later that same year, a peace agreement was signed.
Nearly 10,000 people died in the Serbian-Croatian war y hundreds of thousands they became refugees. Hundreds of people are still missing.
