A memorial service for those killed in the Croatian military Operation Flash (orig. Bljesak) will be held on Sunday, May 1, at 11 o’clock in the morning at the St. Marko Church in Belgrade.

Same as every year, the representatives from the “Suza” Association will reminisce on the scale of the crime and lay wreaths and flowers on the monument to Serb victims of the wars in former Yugoslavia, at the Tašmajdan Park.

On May 1, 1995, over only 36 hours, Croatian military, paramilitary and police forces, commanded by Franjo Tuđman, banished around 15,000 ethnic Serbs. During the operation 283 persons were killed or went missing, including 57 women and nine children.

During the attack, the Western Slavonia region was a part of the Republic of Serbian Krajina and under the protection of the United Nations. The ICTY originally found Croatian army Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač guilty of participation in the joint criminal endeavor with the objective to forcibly and permanently remove people of Serb ethnicity from Krajina during and after the operations “Storm” (orig. Oluja) and “Flash”. In the second-instance judgment, Gotovina and Markač were acquitted of all responsibility for the crimes committed.