Patriarch: Victims have to be remembered

The operation was launched by the Croatian military and police against rebel Serb strongholds around the city of Knin, leading to the expulsion of thousands of civilians.

Speaking in the Bosnian city of Mrkonjic Grad (in Republika Srpska) the Patriarch called all people to rise above narrow, selfish and ideologically motivated particular interests as well as divisiions. "We respect other people and nations," he is reported to have said.

"We assemble every year in different places to pray for the dead in the terrible persecution of our people, their expulsion from their centuries-old homes in what was called Storm and embrace those who carry the wounds of that expulsion in Europe of the 20th century," he said.