VOZUCA - VILLAGE OF FORGOTTEN WIDOWS

Among Persons Banished from Srebrenica

AIM Vozuca, 10 March, 1997

Vozuca, a small town near Zavidovici, one of the last Chetnik strongholds in the past war, is nowadays a sad place. Out of seven thousand inhabitants who live in forty three hamlets in what used to be a municipality, more than half are persons banished from Srebrenica. Out of that half, half are families of men killed in the war.

Eight hundred widows live in abandoned Serb houses sharing them with one, two or even three other families. Half- literate, half-educated, half-dressed, but hundred per cent unfortunate and wretched women from Srebrenica do not know how they will survive the day which lies ahead.

They live mostly on humanitarian aid which they receive once a month (ten kilos of flour, half a litre of oil, half a kilo of sugar and beans), and symbolic veterans' pensions which arrive with the delay of more than six months. Majority cannot receive even this "symbolic" pay, because their husbands had "disappeared". Many of them have already stopped hoping and listening to footsteps in front of the doors and pestering the Red Cross workers. They know that they are widows.

Mina Ibrahimovic lost her husband, two sons, two brothers, four nephews and her father in Srebrenica. All she has left is a daughter. The two of them live on the handful of humanitarian aid. What will become of them when that ceases to arrive?

"We will still have the river Krivaja. To jump into it", says Mina.

And the elderly Zejna Suljic says that she lives "against the grain". We found her crying in front of the gate of a crumbling house in which she lives. She complains that the neighbours' children have just "soaked Nisvet's head with cold water". And Nisvet is her three-year old grandson whom the helpless granny cannot protect even from the children in the neighbourhood. For two years already she is living alone with him in an empty, damp room.

"If you only knew what my sons were like. Ismet was slain in his flat in Srebrenica together with his wife and two sons. And Bekto (1957), Hairudin (1963), Jusuf (1965), Husein (1967) and Fadil (1972) have disappeared. And tell me, what is there for me to live for? Just tell me, what for?", granny Zejna wonders.

Before we had entered the house, she combed her grandson Nisvet's wet hair. And she started to cry again. Then we entered the small, drab room of Hata Malic. She is also a widow. For a year now she has been bed-ridden, she suffers from a tumor on the pituitary gland, but has no medical care whatsoever. She would also like to die when she "can be of no help to the children". There are three of them. She has never been for a medical checkup in Zavidovici, Zenica or Sarajevo, because the clinic in Vozuca has no vehicle (although she has sent requests to all addresses), and she has no money for a taxi. She shrugs her shoulders in a sign of total resignation.

Destinies follow each other, all of them similar. Eight hundred women have lost eight hundred husbands and live forgotten in Vozuca. Nobody, absolutely nobody has ever visited them "to console them or, least of all, bring aid". In a conversation with a mathematics teacher (who is in fact a mechanical engineer) Jusuf Ahmetovic, we learn that children from Srebrenica have difficulties with studying due to fear they experienced. Jusuf is also from Srebrenica. He tells us that until the fall of this town he lectured in the Secondary School of mechanical engineering. Then, a heedless and rash question creates an enormous gap between the people from Srebrenica and all of us, others. We asked: "Do you happen to know how your former students are doing in school nowadays?" "I have found out that out of two classes of the first grade of the Secondary School of mecahnical engineering whom I taught, only three or four students have survived. The others have probably been killed, because they are registered as disappered", answered the professor from Srebrenica.

There was no more questions after that. We were silent together.

In Vozuca, there are over one thousand children without one or both parents. Majority of them have red blemishes on their faces inflammed from scratching and filth. There is no water in this place, and two pools from which inhabitants of Vozuca drain drinking and hygienic water seems to be contaminated. Doctor Huric says that in fighting the infection, the drugs (powder) he prescibes does not help much because the mothers have not enough clothing to give their children to change regularly. People who live here have sent letters with requests for cleaning wells and supplying Vozuca with drinkable water to addresses of the canton, the Federation and the state. If that was impossible, they begged for tank trucks of water at least. A letter was sent even to President Alija Izetbegovic.

"We have all voted for him and he has turned his head away from us", says Behadil Alisevic. We met Behadil when he was distributing hunmanitarian aid which refugees from Srebrenica receive once a month. Every gram of it is carefully measured, people queue for a long time, and then tie the bags with great care. Exactly as it was done in Sarajevo during the great famine. It seems that peace has not come here yet.

Twenty seven year old Hazim Buljubasic, white from flour, pulls up his trousers to show how he cannot bend his knee. "I should go for medical treatment, but have no money", says this demobilized soldier of the Army of B&H who is 80 per cent disabled. Hazim carries sacks of flour in order to earn some money for his family. Out of three thousand banished citizens of Srebrenica living nowadays in Vozuca, least of all are men in working age. Most of them were murdered in summer

1. Men who survived, along with their own families, must take care of families of their sisters and sisters-in-law who have been left without their husbands.

"Every man has at least ten-fifteen poor ones around his neck", says Mina Ibrahimovic.

As not even water has reached this region, how can anyone hope that a factory will be opened. They cannot work the land because they have no tools. The natives, as the refugees say, charge fifty marks to plough an acre of land. Where could they get that kind of money? Therefore, the land remains hard, uncultivated and unploughed. Children from Srebrenica are hungry.

Sandra KASALO