New Delhi, Aug 4: On August 5, 1995, Croatian armed forces launched a massive offensive, codenamed "Operation Storm", that put an end to the four-year uprising that affected a third of its territory by armed elements from the country's Serb minority.
The battle, launched to restore Croatian control of 10,400 square kilometres of territory, representing 18.4% of the country, was the largest European land battle since the Second World War.
Operation Storm commenced at dawn on 4 August 1995 and was declared complete on the evening of 7 August, despite significant mopping-up operations against pockets of resistance lasting until 14 August.
The 1995 Operation Storm conducted by the Croatian military brought not only a reversal of fortune on the battlefield, but also prompted another wave of displacement – this time in the opposite direction.
Some 250,000 Croatian Serbs fled the country and found refuge in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now Serbia and Montenegro) and in the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Watch in pics the march and victory of the Croatian armed forces in Operation Storm:
