Serbian Patriarch Porfirije conducted a memorial service (panikhida) for the victims of Operation Storm in 1995, as reported by the Serbian Orthodox Church website. The commemorative events took place for the first time this year in the city of Prijedor, located in the Republika Srpska, an autonomous region of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Day of Remembrance in Prijedor was attended by the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, and the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, along with the Prime Minister of Serbia, Radovan Višković, Željka Cvijanović, and other Serbian officials.

After the panikhida, Patriarch Porfirije addressed the gathered crowd with his primatial words. In his speech, he emphasized that peace is the highest value, the condition for true human dignity, and called on everyone, especially religious leaders, to preserve and build peace among people and nations.

"I appeal to all, but first and foremost, I call upon religious leaders to do everything to preserve and build peace among people and nations. To begin with, feeling each other's pain and wounds, let us make an effort to see not only our own suffering and wounds. The ability to empathize with the suffering of others can become the foundation and guarantee of a peaceful future," said Patriarch Porfirije.

Operation Storm was a joint military operation conducted by the Croatian Army and the 5th Corps of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina in August 1995 against the Republic of Serbian Krajina, an unrecognized Serbian entity within Croatia. The outcome of this operation was Croatia's victory and the elimination of the Republic of Serbian Krajina and Western Bosnia. The ethnic map of modern-day Croatia was significantly altered as a result: an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Serbs fled the region, and hundreds to several thousand Serbs were killed. Many refugees from Croatia eventually settled in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As Patriarch Porfirije noted in his speech, Prijedor served as a "stop of salvation" for Serbs fleeing the war in 1995.