‘Day of the Disappeared’ Marked Across the Balkans

The International Day of the Disappeared was marked in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo on Friday with a series of events intended to highlight how thousands of people who disappeared during the 1990s wars have not yet been found.

In Pristina, families of people who went missing during the war and Kosovo officials held a march through the city and then laid wreaths at the monument commemorating missing persons.

Outgoing Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, who took part in the march, said that missing persons from the 1998-99 Kosovo war are "our biggest wound which haunts us every day, for two decades now".

Croatians marked International Day of the Disappeared with the laying of wreaths and the saying of prayers at a cemetery in the eastern Croatian town of Vinkovci.

The event was attended by state officials and families of missing Croatian veterans and civilians from Vinkovci, Vukovar, Osijek and other places across the country.

Croatian War Veterans' Minister Tomo Medved told reporters that Croatia will "never stop" searching for missing persons from the 1991-95 'Homeland War'.

"Today, I appeal to all those who possess information, and in particular to the authorities of the Republic of Serbia, to provide us with good information," Medved said.

In the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, associations of families of missing persons, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Network for Building Peace, launched an awareness campaign entitled 'Gdje je?' ('Where is he/she?') and an exhibition of pictures relating to missing persons in a square in the city centre.

A total of 1,638 people are still listed as missing from the war in Kosovo, 1,892 in Croatia and 7,206 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

'Day of the...