Melange Magazine

Travel

A Journey Through Bosnia and Herzegovina
Essay, photos and photo captions by Sara Ang

The Bosnian war that lasted from 1992 until 1995 took the lives of approximately 300,000 people and damaged the hearts of many others.

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A view of the outskirts of the town of Maglaj, which we first stayed in. This is how a large percentage of the people in Bosnia live - in stone houses atop hills.

Old Turkish castles cam be found on hills over cities in Bosnia.

Bosnian graveyards can often be found on hills in and around the cities and villages. Sadly enough many people died sometime between 1992 and 1995.

Three boys seeing an opportunity to be captured on film when I came along with my camera.

I thought the symbolism in this was frightening - a Bosnian child aiming a toygun at me.

The orthodox church (Serbs) in this particular town has still not been rebuilt after the war. Maybe because this town is situated in the Federation where mainly Bosniaks and Croats live. Serbs living in this area have very few options and it is almost impossible for them to find work. The minister of this church says he chose to stay to try to reconcile the differences between the ethnic groups.

The mosque in Maglaj was bombed in the war but has been rebuilt.

Muslims praying outside of the big mosque in the old parts of Sarajevo. After I took this shot, I foudn that taking photographs is not allowed during Islamic prayer.

A view of Sarajevo.

River, Sarajevo.

Three friends (?) at the square in old Sarajevo, sitting down at the fountain.

Just a sweet man with a flower he brought with him on the tram so he could smell it. I imagined that must be what peace must smell like for people who lived in Bosnia during wartime.

Doves of peace?

My school’s International Relations class went on a two-week trip to Bosnia in April this year and I went along as a photographer. For the first few days, we stayed at a youth centre in a small Bosnian town. It was run by an organization called PRONI that has several youth centres in and around Bosnia. They worked to bring together children from different ethnic groups after the war, such as Bosniaks (Muslims), Serbs (Christian Orthodox) and Croats (Roman Catholics).

After the Second World War (1939-45) Yugoslavia became the Federal Peoples' Republic of Yugoslavia, led by the communist Marshall Tito. Bosnia was an independent republic within the Yugoslav state. Tito thought he had built a place where the different ethnic groups could live in peace, but when he died in 1980, it turned out he was wrong. The war broke out when the republics started to break away from the Yugoslav state and declared their independence.

People in Bosnia are often friendly and helpful. When my friend lost her wallet to a pickpocket, an old lady took time out of her busy schedule to help us to the police station. She acted as our translator and helped us obtain the documents we needed. What would normally take at least ten days, with her help, took only a day. She repeatedly said, “I am not rich in money but I am rich in my heart.”

We also went to Sarajevo and stayed there for three days. The Bosnian capital is situated in a valley surrounded by mountains. No one thought that the war would reach a city with so many different ethnicities, but it came to be the worst place to be during the war because of its location. Sarajevo was under siege for years. The Serbs occupied the hills around the city and their snipers made the lives of the Sarajevo citizens a nightmare. Burning oil drums were thrown down over the city daily and the Serbs were raining shells from the hilltops to wipe out as many as possible. The citizens had little or no way to defend themselves. If you travel to the outskirts of the city, you can see signs that forbid you to walk in the open fields and on the grass because of land mines. It wasn’t unusual to see men with only one leg or one arm sitting on the streets begging for money.

Something that came to be very important for the citizens of Sarajevo during the war was the Secret Tunnel. It was built in 1993 by Bosnian soldiers and miners. Being 1.6 meters high and 800 meters long, it linked Sarajevo with Mt. Igman, the only mountain in the city that wasn’t under Serb occupation. Approximately 5,000 people walked through this narrow tunnel every day with food and weapons. In many ways the tunnel saved the city from starvation and provided gas and electricity for the exposed people of Sarajevo.

In 1995, peace came and Bosnia was stabilized when the Dayton peace agreement was signed. It stated that “Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia agree to fully respect the sovereign equality of one another and to settle disputes by peaceful means.”

War refugees have started to return to their country to rebuild their bombed homes and much of Sarajevo has been rebuilt. It is now a city of the 21st century.

Today, the country of Bosnia is divided into two segments: Republica Srpska, where mainly Serbs live, and the Federation, with a majority of Bosniaks and Croats. It’s impossible not to notice the differences when you travel from the Federation to Republica Srpska the Serbian flag is suddenly everywhere and the signs are in Cyrillic instead of the alphabets we are used to.

Many of the people in Bosnia have hope for the future. An expression frequently used in the Balkans is “nema problema” which means “no problem”. Of course hatred still exists, but the tensions between the groups are controlled by UN troops. Even though many people have lost loved ones in the war and Bosnia is one of the poorest republics in the former Yugoslav federation, they are positive when facing the future and they are ready to start rebuilding their country; a country where all the different ethnic groups can live side by side in peace.

My understanding of Bosnia is that it is a beautiful country. The first thing you notice upon arrival is not a country that has been at war, but the warmth and the openness of the people.