Bosnia & Herzegovina! Day 13 & War!

Do you know who this is?  On a street corner is a statue of Nikola Tesla, the inventor of DC electrical current, a contemporary and rival of Albert Einstein, and a native of Croatia.

Makes you feel right back in the U. S of A!

It was wonderful to sleep with the window open last night.  Finally, a heavy comforter I can snuggle under.  There wasn’t much street noise, and the Muslim call to prayer was not until 6:00.  Their calls are seasonal so times can change but always five times per day.

An army veteran and soldier trying to protect Sarajevo during the siege spoke to us.  He was not resentful towards the Serbs and have forgiven them, but he has not forgotten his experiences.  He has been described as a hero which he denies.  “I am just a survivor.”

The Siege of Sarajevo lasted 1450 days and over 22,000 people were killed including 1500 children.  Milosevic wanted to create a “Great Serbia” but Bosnia & Herzegovina wanted independence.  The city was divided into two parts one of which was occupied by the army plus they controlled the mountains surrounding the city.  The defenders of Sarajevo pushed the Serbian army out of the city and back into the mountains where they were entrenched.

During demonstrations for independence, a young female student and an older woman were killed which started the war.  When shelling began in December, 1992, most citizens thought it wouldn’t happen. 

The next day was a Muslim holiday, and whenever Muslims celebrate, they fire guns into the air.  This time, however, they began shooting at buildings.   

By April, water, gas, and communications were cut off.  The Serbs did not want to occupy the city, just terrorize them, and make them realize the folly of independence.  As our speaker said, water was paid for in blood and body parts. “It is difficult to carry 50 liters of water under enemy fire.”

Children were killed by sniper fire while playing in the snow.  One street was called “sniper alley” because snipers had a clear line of sight to fire on civilians crossing it.  The firewood was depleted, and the citizens were forbidden to cut down the trees in the park, so they used anything that would burn…furniture, roots, clothes, shoes, plastic.  The city smelled awful!

Bomb detonations had destroyed the glass in buildings so huge sheets of plastic covered the openings.  A hole would be cut and a tube inserted to vent cooking and heating fires.  Burnt cars and trucks littered the roads along with garbage.  Dogs and cats wandered the streets because their owners were either killed or could no longer afford to feed them.  

Bosnians knew the war would come, and they had tried to prepare by smuggling weapons in from Croatia.  6,000 men were armed but mostly with handguns.  Milosevic controlled the 4th largest army in Europe so he was well prepared.

The fall and winter of 1992 were especially hard when hunger set in.  Five hundred people alone died of hunger.  Our speaker said maybe it is better to have a quick death from a sniper’s bullet than a slow death from hunger.  The UN tried to provide humanitarian relief, but the Serbs in the mountains would fire on the planes making them turn around.  

Atrocities were abundant.  People sold everything they owned for money to purchase items from the black market .  They had been issued ration cards, but the portions were small and a family was unable to survive on these rations alone.  1 kilo of sugar…about 2.2 lbs…was equivalent to $200 US.

The French would buy antiques and collectibles while the Egyptians bought young girls and women.  Weekend warriors arrived in the Serbian mountain encampments to shoot at people in the city instead of hunting wild game.

It was an emotionally moving and difficult lecture to hear, but he brought the pain of war to life.

We visited the tunnel built under the Sarajevo airport after eight months of starvation known as “The Tunnel of Life”.  A pass for 24 hours allowed people, supplies, and even animals to move through this tunnel from 1993-1995.  The pass was never for all family members to ensure that people would return to Sarajevo.

Today the tunnel is called “The Tunnel of Hope”.  Our guide said people are much stronger than they think they are.  On the map at the narrowest point is the airport, and the tunnel was dug by the Bosnian army between March-June 1993 to link the city of Sarajevo and the Bosnian held territory on the other side.

Our guide was a young girl during the siege and said that during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s people trusted the media even though it was controlled by the government.  People would say, “the television said this” or “I heard it on the radio”.  This allowed Milosevic to influence peoples’ thoughts and spread false propaganda.

The UN sent troops known as “white helmets” in 1991 after the conflict began.  However, their mission was to “observe only”, and when asked what they would do to help replied, ”Oh, we don’t have a mandate to interfere.”

The UN had taken over the airport for their personal use.  However, if citizens tried to run across the runways, they were shot by the UN forces.  It was a struggle to eat, and if a resident left the safety of their home, they risked being shot by snipers.

The tunnel was approximately .6 miles long, and digging started on both sides and met in the middle.  A chronic problem was flooding which could reach waist deep.  Dug by hand, workers were paid one pack of cigarettes/day, an item in high demand.  At the deepest point, the tunnel was 16 feet below the airport.

The house where the original tunnel started secretly near Sarajevo still bears the damage from bullets and bombs. 

  

We walk through a reproduction tunnel,
  

but I would have loved to see the original one.

In the afternoon,  Robyn and I wandered the market aisles, and I find the gifts I wanted.  I wish I had more room in my luggage!

One of the highlights of an OAT trip is the home hostessed dinner where a regular family invites you into their home for a meal.  Our host was a mother and daughter who prepared a traditional special meal of a chicken stock soup with tiny diced vegetables, potatoes, a cabbage slaw, and meat and rice filled onion, cabbage leaves, and pepper.  There was the most delicious bread and baklava for dessert!  I was stuffed!

We asked lots of questions about their lifestyle, family history, and life during the war.  The mother did not speak English, but the daughter was very fluent.  It certainly gives you a glimpse into normal peoples’ lives vs. being a tourist.

Their family was living near Mostar which we visited several days ago.  Being Muslim, they were told to leave so the mother and two daughters, 3 and 6 years old, walked 8 days to reach Sarajevo and entered the city through The Tunnel of Life.  Their family heard Serbian forces were coming so the father and brothers fled into the woods along with the other men from the town.  Otherwise, they probably would have been killed.

With the recent war in the Ukraine, the daughter said it made her very fearful that they would experience war themselves again.  She discussed Bosnian & Herzegovina politics which are a “mess”, and she doesn’t see her life improving.  She is college educated and works as an accountant, but jobs can be difficult to find and the pay is not good.  However, the extended family lives in Sarajevo, and she doesn’t want to move.

Her mother admitted that life was better under Tito’s reign even through it was a communist government.  Many young people leave Bosnia & Herzegovina resulting in a brain drain, but they find more opportunities throughout Europe…especially Germany…and the US.  Our young host has two sons and hope their economic situation will one day be better than her present life.

We leave Sarajevo in the morning traveling to Karanac, Croatia, a small rural community and ultimately to a farm for an overnight stay.  Stay tuned since Travels with GJ is on the move!