Serbia to return Croatian horses

The horses were reported to be have been maltreated

Serbia is to return 74 prized Lipizzaner horses to Croatia, more than 15 years after the animals were captured when the region went to war.

Croatia began calling for the horses' return after reports - denied by Serbia - that they had been neglected.

Serbian Agriculture Minister Slobodan Milosavljevic and Croatian counterpart Petar Cobankovic agreed the deal on a visit to the farm housing the animals.

Lipizzaner horses are used by Vienna's famed Spanish Riding School.

Valued for their elegance and sprightliness, the horses were first bred in 1580 in the town of Lipica - once part of Austria's Habsburg Empire and now in Slovenia.

'Good health'

The horses arrived in northern Serbia in 1991, in the early stages of the conflict that accompanied the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

According to the Reuters news agency, the horses' stables in the town of Lipik in eastern Croatia had been shelled by Croatian Serbs.

The exact manner in which they arrived in Serbia is not clear, with Croatian media saying they were stolen and other reports saying they wandered across the frontline.

Earlier this month, Mr Milosavljevic visited the animals at the private farm where they were being kept, near the city of Novi Sad.

His visit was prompted by media reports that the animals were in poor health and malnourished.

Mr Milosavljevic said at the time that vets who accompanied him to the farm in Novi Sad deemed the animals to be in good health.

He told daily newspaper Vecernje Novosti on Tuesday that his agreement with Mr Cobankovic "practically started the process of the return of the horses to Croatia".