Authorities have exhumed the remains of 30
people executed at the end of World War II who were found in a mass
grave near Croatia's capital, officials said Thursday.
The victims were believed to be cadets of a military academy run by pro-Nazi Croatia's regime during the war.
“The grave was quite shallow, some bones were found only 35
centimetres (13 inches) below the
ground,” the national bureau charged with searching for communist-era
victims said in a statement.
The remains were found in a grave
in the forest region of Gracani, north of the capital Zagreb, while the
victims were probably executed in May 1945, it added.
“Irrefutable
evidence of execution” were also found in the grave, notably a large
amount of bullets and cartridges, the statement said.
Several skulls had traces of bullet holes, while some of the victims had their hands tied up with metal wire, it added.
In July, 36 victims of the communist regime were found in another grave found in the same area.
During the war, hundreds of
thousands of Serbs, Romas and Jews were killed by Croatia's pro-Nazi
regime, which was eventually defeated by Yugoslav partisans led by
communist leader Josip Broz Tito.
According to the bureau, an
institution established last year by Croatia's parliament, some 600
graves with around 90,000 victims of the communist regime dot this
former Yugoslav republic, a figure that has been dismissed as
“manipulation” by a group representing former anti-fascist fighters.
Communist Yugoslavia fell apart in
a series of bloody wars in the early 1990s, after two of its six
republics, Slovenia and Croatia, proclaimed independence. - Sapa-AFP
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