PHOTO: Croatian Mother Buries Son After 17 Years

Ivica Zrnic, only child, was identified by his mother 17 years after he went missing. The number of MIAs is now 1,066.

ZAGREB, CROATIA – After seventeen years, the mother of Ivica Zrnic, Croatian defender who went missing in Vukovar during the Croatian War of Independence, finally identified his body at the Institute of Forensic Medicine of Zagreb. With her, ten other families found out the end of their beloved. 

- I had only one son. He disappeared in Vukovar, the Navy found him, after 17 years. This is the first time I have come to identify a body and I immediately confirmed that it is him – said quietly Mrs Zrnic, after she went out from the room where the identification took place.

Still 1,066 MIAs from the Croatian War of Independence

The Minister of Family, Defenders and Intergeneration Solidarity, Jadranka Kosor, was with Ivica Zrnic’s mother, and the other families of missing defenders and civilians at the time of the identification. After the identification process, Mrs Kosor stated that the number of MIAs form the Croatian War of Independence has gone down to 1,066.

- The number of identified casualties from 1991 has gone up to 3,116. The two bodies were found in a mass grave in Vukovar, the largest mass grave after the Second World War, in which they found 938 bodies. With two more today, the number of identified bodies is 814 – said Kosor.

- Other remains of casualties were found, one near Jasenovac, and two found near Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. A woman was exhumed from the fire place of her house, and a man who was identified today went missing with his two sons, who have not been identified. This shows how people perished and how ruthless the enemy was– said the minister.

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