Forging a New Nation: The Inspirational Women of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Over 15 years have passed since the Bosnian War was officially declared as having reached an end: yet the repercussions of a war which saw the systematic mass rape and torture of over 20,000 women continues to resonate throughout the land.
On 1st May 2009, Director of Operations for Women for Women International(WfWI)-UK, Brita Fernandez Schmidt, together with President of the Conservative Women’s Organisation, Lady Fiona Hodgson, accompanied a group of supporters from London to Bosnia and Herzegovina to see for themselves how the country – and its women – were coping with the aftermaths of one of the bloodiest wars in European history.
What they found, was both tragic and inspirational…
“The horror of the Bosnian war was bought home to us with shocking clarity when we visited the War Memorial at Srebrenica. It was here that the worst massacre since World War II took place in July 1995. Srebrenica had been designated a ‘safe area’ by the UN and about 25,000 Muslims gathered here to be protected from the approaching Serb army. The 313 UN Dutch troops were garrisoned in an old battery factory at Potocari and were quite overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of people, estimated at around 25,000, who came for shelter. Some of the men tried to escape over the mountains to the city of Tuzla and of those many were captured and killed. The UN troops looked on whilst Serb forces and paramilitaries (Chetniks) led by General Ratko Mladic separated the remaining people – we heard heart-breaking stories of sons being wrenched from their mother’s arms – men and boys over 7 were loaded on to buses, taken away and shot. The women meanwhile were bussed to near Tuzla, made to walk the last 3 km with the Serbians scanning the lines for any boy over 7, so that they could pull them out. Thousands of men and boys were summarily executed and buried in mass graves within a matter of days while the international community attempted to negotiate access to them…
…For Hana, who met us at the memorial to tell us about what had happened there, finding the remains of relatives also brought more heartache. Her father’s headless body was recovered in one grave and, later, his head in another…At the memorial we saw a digger digging more graves: for every 11th July, there is a ceremony where bodies that have been recovered during the previous year are laid to rest.
To continue reading Lady Fiona Hodgson’s account of her trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina, please click here.
DAY 1, 3rd May 2009
I arrived this afternoon in Sarajevo to see – for the first time- the actual work of Women for Women International on the ground with my own eyes. On the way from the airport, we passed many buildings with numerous bullet holes large and small, an immediate and very visible legacy of a war that has been one of the worst in recent European history. Later walking through the old part of Sarajevo, I was trying to imagine what it must have been like to have lived through the years of war in Sarajevo (only 15 years ago) – caged in by beautiful mountains which meant you could not get out and wondered what other legacy this terrible war has left.
In the evening we met a few of the Women for Women staff and Seida, the country director. All together we watched ‘Grbavica’ (Esma’s secret: Grbavica). Grbavica is an area of Sarajevo where the initial war started and where everyone who was not Serb was killed or raped. The film, produced in 2006 and winner of the Berlin International Film Festival gave me the answer to my question about the legacy of the Bosnian war. It is a story about a young girl who asks her mother who her father was: whilst initially pretending he was a war hero, in the end the mother tells her daughter that a soldier raped her. The pain and suffering of the mother, all the lost opportunities, the destruction, the denial and the impossibility of actually coming to terms with one of the worst war crimes – rape – and its legacy is painfully depicted in this amazing film…
Read more of Brita’s blog by clicking here.
For more information about the Bosnian War and what Women for Women International is doing to assist the women of Bosnia and Herzegovina, please click here.
