\n Top Croatian leaders led commemorations Wednesday of the 1991 fall of the town of Vukovar, one of the bloodiest episodes of the Balkans wars, attended by thousands despite a surge in coronavirus infections.\n<\/p>\n
\n The event went ahead after the national Covid-19 response team ruled that a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people does not apply to rallies marking public holidays such as Vukovar Remembrance Day.\n<\/p>\n
\n An association of hospital doctors slammed the decision for \"hypocrisy and cowardice\", saying measures to fight the virus should be \"valid for all of us in all situations\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite an official recommendation that only 500 people attend Wednesday's commemoration, around 10,000 people took part in a traditional silent march through the eastern town, according to local media.\n<\/p>\n
\n The mourners, many not wearing masks, first gathered in front of a hospital that symbolises Vukovar's wartime resistance and then marched to the cemetery to lay wreaths and light candles.\n<\/p>\n
\n Croatia, with a population of some 4.2 million, has registered more than 90,000 infections and 1,151 deaths from Covid-19.\n<\/p>\n
\n A record 3,251 cases were registered on Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Vukovar event usually draws tens of thousands remembering \"Croatia's Stalingrad\" when the city fell after a three-month siege by the Serbia-controlled Yugoslav army (JNA) and Serb rebels.\n<\/p>\n
\n The city was practically razed to the ground and more than 1,600 people were killed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Soldiers bused about 260 people to a secluded pig farm where they were beaten, killed and buried in mass graves.\n<\/p>\n
\n Some 22,000 non-Serbs were expelled from the area.\n<\/p>\n
\n Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milosevic, an ethnic Serb, joined the mourners Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic hailed his presence as an important \"message turned towards future\".\n<\/p>\n
\n A quarter century on, relations between Croatia and its ethnic Serbs and Serbia proper remain tense, and Vukovar is strictly divided between ethnic Croats and Serbs.\n<\/p>\n
\n A UN war crimes court sentenced two top Serb officers, Mile Mrksic and Veselin Sljivancanin, to jail terms of 20 and 10 years for the Vukovar massacre.\n<\/p>\n
\n Croatia's proclamation of independence from Yugoslavia sparked the 1991-95 war with Belgrade-backed rebel Serbs who opposed the move.\n<\/p>\n
\n The conflict claimed 20,000 lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Top Croatian leaders led commemorations Wednesday of the 1991 fall of the town of Vukovar, one of the bloodiest episodes of the Balkans wars, attended by thousands despite a surge in coronavirus infections. The event went ahead after the national Covid-19 response team ruled that a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-46022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n