The Croatian capital has served for months as a transit point for Saudi-financed weapons for Syrian rebels, a local newspaper said on Friday, but the report was swiftly denied by the government.

Some 75 civilian transport planes carrying weapons for the rebels battling the regime of President Bashar Assad took off from Zagreb airport between last November and February, the influential Jutarnji List reported citing unnamed diplomatic sources.

Freshly introduced sexual education classes in Croatia's schools has split the EU-bound country as the powerful Catholic Church challenges the center-left government over its newest addition to the curriculum.

Aimed at raising awareness on potential sexual issues and problems, the pilot "sex-ed" program started last year and will continue to June 2014. Content is adjusted to the age of the pupils, who range from nine to 18 years old.

Saudi Arabia has been supplying Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar Assad with arms bought from Croatia, according to The New York Times.

Citing unnamed U.S. and western officials, the newspaper reported late Monday that the Saudi-financed "large purchase of infantry weapons" was part of an "undeclared surplus" of arms left over from the Balkan wars in the 1990s and that they began reaching anti-regime fighters via Jordan in December.

Croatian tourism income, a key driver of the EU-bound country's ailing economy, grew during the first nine months of 2012 compared with the same period a year earlier, ministry data showed on Friday.

Tourism income rose to around 6.4 billion euros ($8.3 billion), an increase of 5.3 percent from the comparable figure for 2011, a statement released by the tourism ministry said.

Croatian general Ante Gotovina, who was cleared last week of committing war crimes, called on Serb war refugees to return to Croatia, in an interview with a Serbian daily Monday.

"I would tell them to return to Croatia. They are Croatian citizens, it is their country as much as it is mine," Gotovina said when asked by the Kurir Serbian daily what his message was for Croatian Serbs who fled the country during the 1991-95 war that pitted Zagreb against Belgrade-backed rebel Serbs.

Tens of thousands of Croatians gathered in the eastern city of Vukovar Sunday to commemorate one of the bloodiest episode of the Balkan nation's 1990s war for independence.

Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and President Ivo Josipovic attended the memorial ceremony, which drew about 50,000 people.

Several hundred Serbian nationalists Saturday burned Croatia's flag during a protest against a U.N. court acquitting two Croatian generals of war crimes against ethnic Serbs in the 1990s.

The protestors, who gathered in front of the presidency building in Belgrade for a rally called by the ultra-nationalist Serb Radical Party (SRS), urged the authorities to give up Serbia's bid to join the European Union and cease all cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Two Croatian generals returned home to a hero's welcome on Friday after a U.N. court in The Hague cleared them of war crimes against Serbs during the bloody 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia.

The dramatic acquittal of Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was met with tears of joy in Croatia and outrage in bitter foe Serbia.

A Croatian priest has run off with almost one million euros ($1.3 million) after illegally selling church property, officials said Tuesday, amid media reports the Catholic clergyman had fled with a married woman.

Franciscan priest Sime Nimac earlier this year signed a deal with a local firm to sell a plot of church land, the Split archdiocese said in statement.

Croatian President Ivo Josipovic extended the hand of peace to Serb citizens Sunday as he marked the anniversary of the crushing of a Serb rebellion in 1995, an operation pivotal in ending the war.

"Croatia won the war, it is a great achievement... but Croatia still has to battle to win in peace," Josipovic said at a ceremony at the former ethnic Serb rebel stronghold of Knin marking the 17th anniversary of Operation Storm.