Croatian War Crime Trials Stalled Again in 2020, Report Warns

Human Rights House Zagreb said in its annual report published on Thursday that there has been "no significant progress in the prosecution of war crimes in 2020" in Croatia.

"Hearings in numerous criminal proceedings for war crimes were not scheduled," the NGO's report said, adding that there are still problems with the lengthy duration of court proceedings, which go on for two years or more.

However, the report said that a "shift" in the culture of remembrance at commemorations of 1991-95 war events, which were previously exclusively focused on Croats.

The report noted that the draft of a law that will set out the rights of civilian victims of the 1990s conflict was submitted to parliament at the end of 2020, but that "civilian victims of the war still face many problems and challenges in exercising their human rights".

"The biggest challenge in determining the status of a civilian victim of war is medical documentation. Specifically, in most cases, medical documentation, which civilian victims of war have from the time they were injured, is not sufficient to exercise the right to the status of a civilian victim because the medical documentation often does not state the exact cause of injury," it explained.

The report also highlighted the difficult situation of the Serb ethnic minority in Croatia.

"Many Serb [post-war] returnees live in underdeveloped rural areas, traffic-isolated and in poor living conditions, and are still unable to exercise their property rights, and their property remains exposed to usurpation and destruction," it said.

A devastating earthquake in December in central Croatia and the Banija region "further aggravated the already difficult socio-economic situation" of all residents from "one of...