Angrep på katolske messebesøkende i serbisk-okkupert Øst-Slavonia

ZAGREB (CWN) - Refugees in the last Croatian enclave inside Serbian-controlled Easter Slavonia were attacked by dozens of Serbs as they tried to attend Mass on Christmas Eve.

The Croatian news agency HINA quoted UN officials as saying 100 Serbs gathered in front of the Catholic church in Ilok, throwing explosives and hurling insults at 50 Croats who had been bused into the town for the Mass. The refugees were trapped inside the building for three hours until the UN brought in military and police reinforcements. HINA reported that one UN policeman was injured in the disturbance, but no other injuries were reported.

As the refugees gathered in a nearby monastery following the siege, Serbs broke into the church and vandalized the property. UNTAES administrator Jacques Klein brought two senior Serb officials to the scene who persuaded the Serbs to disperse. But some stoned buses carrying Croats out of Ilok back to government-controlled territory to the west, HINA said.

The UN transitional administration in Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES), with 5,000 combat-trained peacekeeping troops, took charge of Eastern Slavonia last January with a mandate to gradually restore Croatian government rule in the region by mid-1997. The area's Serb militia was disbanded by UNTAES last summer. Many thousands of the estimated 120,000 Serbs in Eastern Slavonia have applied for Croatian citizenship papers.

av Webmaster publisert 28.12.1996, sist endret 28.12.1996 - 00:30