"City of Heroes" must not be forgotten, marathon runners from Tuzla arrived in Vukovar

In Vukovar, a commemorative program and a Column of Remembrance, in which thousands of people will walk from the Vukovar General Hospital to the Memorial Cemetery of the Victims of the Homeland War, five kilometers away, will be held today, where state and other delegations will lay wreaths and light candles, marking the 23rd anniversary of the suffering of that city in the Homeland War, writes the BiH news agency Patria.

The Battle of Vukovar, in which, according to the Vukovar hospital data, 1,624 defenders and civilians were killed or died and 1,219 were wounded by the fall of the city's defense on November 18, 1991, began on August 25, when the JNA and Serb paramilitary units launched a general tank-infantry attack. According to hospital data, about 3,600 defenders and civilians were killed or died in the aggression against Vukovar and the occupation of the city.

The surrounded city was defended by about 1,800 members of the National Guard Corps and police, as well as HOS volunteers organized into the 204th Brigade of the Croatian Army. The city's defense was broken on November 18, 1991, when members of the former JNA and Serb paramilitary units entered Vukovar.

When the aggressor occupied Vukovar, which was completely destroyed, about 22,000 Croats and members of other nationalities were expelled, and several thousand defenders and civilians were taken to Serb prisoner camps.

Many crimes were committed against the captured Vukovar defenders and civilians, and 200 defenders and civilians taken from the Vukovar hospital on November 19 were killed at Ovčara. In memory of the suffering of Vukovar in the Homeland War, the Croatian Parliament declared November 18 the Day of Remembrance of the Sacrifice of Vukovar 1991 in 2009.

Incidentally, the Athletic-Recreational Club "Rekreativci" from Tuzla, together with the Consulate of the Republic of Croatia in Tuzla and Consul Ivan Bandić, organized the first ultramarathon on the Tuzla-Vukovar route, on the occasion of the anniversary of the fall of Vukovar.

26 students from Tuzla to Vukovar covered about 140 km. They arrived in Vukovar last night after 8 PM.