Serbia Sent Refugees from Croatia, Bosnia to Frontlines: Report

The Humanitarian Law Centre NGO said in a report published on Wednesday that in the summer of 1995, the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs forcibly mobilised around 10,000 refugees and took them back to territories under the control of the Bosnian Serb Army in Bosnia and the rebel Serb-run Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia.

The HLC's dossier shows how the governments of Yugoslavia, Serbia, Republika Srpska in Bosnia and the Republic of Serbian Krajina in Croatia made a deal to return the refugees to the frontlines in Bosnia and Croatia.

The move to send back refugees to do military service in Bosnia and Croatia began in 1993, says the dossier, which is entitled 'Forcible Mobilisation of Refugees'.

It quotes the record of a Yugoslav Supreme Defence Council meeting at the end of 1993, at which Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic said there was "a whole body of military deserters who are involved in crime in Yugoslavia and avoiding defending their country there [in Bosnia and Croatia]. It is pointless for volunteers to leave here [for the frontlines] and for [the refugees] to wander around Belgrade and Serbia."

Ivana Zanic, the director of the HLC, said this showed how the Serbian authorities treated wartime refugees.

"So at the end of 1993 it was already absolutely clear how the authorities in Serbia perceived refugees, not like someone who came to Serbian territory to find salvation but like someone who deserted from the army and who in Serbia, in other words the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at that time, was involved in crime and walked the streets freely," Zanic said.

However, the Yugoslav authorities were afraid that international organisations could accuse them of forcible mobilisation, and at the next...