AFP
Zagreb
Around 6,000 admirers of former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito gathered on Saturday at his birthplace in northern Croatia to mark the 123th anniversary of his birth, the state-run radio reported.
The supporters of the late communist leader, coming from all across the former Yugoslavia, braved the pouring rain to gather in front of the house where he was born in 1892 in the village of Kumrovec.
The house has been turned into a museum.
Croatia’s ex-president Stipe Mesic, who led the country for a decade from 2000, also attended the event, traditionally held every year.
Tito remains a controversial figure in Croatia and throughout the Balkans region.
He is admired notably for driving out the Nazi German occupying forces in World War II with his partisan fighters, standing up to Russian leader Joseph Stalin and founding the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
Tito ruled the former Yugoslav federation from the end of World War II until his death in 1980 and made it one of the most prosperous communist countries.
Supporters of Tito attend the commemorative rally in Kumrovec.
