Bosnian Serbs say icon given to Russian minister not stolen

December 22, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — An Orthodox icon presented to Russia's foreign minister had not been stolen from the Ukraine, the office of Bosnia's Serb leader said Tuesday, amid an international diplomatic spat over its origins.

The presiding Serb member of Bosnia’s three-member presidency, Milorad Dodik, gifted the gilded icon to Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov when he visited Bosnia on Dec. 14. The icon, which was said to be 300 years old, is believed to have originated from eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed rebels have been fighting Ukrainian troops in a six-year conflict. Dozens of Serbs have fought alongside the pro-Russia rebels in the conflict.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Sarajevo has requested information on how the Bosnian Serb leader came to possess the icon, noting that the failure to provide the information would mean Bosnia is supporting Russia’s “aggressive policy and military actions” in eastern Ukraine.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Saturday it would return the icon to the Bosnian Serbs for an international police investigation about its origin. After more than a week's silence, Dodik’s office said in a statement that the icon was not stolen and that it not a piece of “cultural heritage or national treasure.” It said it is “a church-blessed icon” that ordinary Orthodox faithful keep in their homes.

The statement did not say how Dodik came to possess the religious artwork or how it was brought to Bosnia. Instead, it condemned rival Bosnian politicians and media of spreading lies aiming to harm Serb-Russian relations.

“Hideous lies cannot hurt the brotherly ties between the two Orthodox nations,” the statement said. Dodik, a staunch pro-Russian politician, also tested positive for the coronavirus on Tuesday.

Gift to Russian minister triggers diplomatic probe in Bosnia

December 17, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Bosnia's authorities opened an investigation Thursday into how a possibly stolen 300-year-old gilded icon from Ukraine ended up being given as a gift to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The presiding Serb member of Bosnia’s three-member presidency, Milorad Dodik, gave the religious painting to Lavrov during his visit to Bosnia earlier this week. The historic artefact is believed to be from war-torn eastern Ukraine which has been under the control of pro-Russian rebels. Dozens of Serbs have fought alongside the rebels in the conflict, which started in 2014.

The Bosnian Serb Srna news agency carried photos of the icon, including its back that shows a stamp of its authenticity written in Ukrainian. The Ukrainian Embassy in Sarajevo has requested information on how the Bosnian Serb leader came into possession of the icon. Failure to provide the information would mean Bosnia is supporting Russia’s “aggressive policy and military actions’’ in eastern Ukraine, the embassy was cited as saying by Sarajevo portal Klix.ba.

Bosnia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that it received the Ukrainian note and said it was forwarded to the three-member presidency for an answer. Bosnian Foreign Minister Bisera Turkovic told the portal that the country’s prosecution office should urgently answer the Ukrainian request and determine if Dodik “came into possession of a stolen Ukrainian property.”

“Huge (diplomatic) damage would be inflicted on Bosnia-Herzegovina if one of its high officials is accused of giving a gift that is stolen,” she said. Dodik, who was the only presidency member who met Lavrov during his visit to Bosnia earlier this week, has so far not reacted to the accusations. The other two, a Bosniak Muslim and a Croat, refused to meet the Russian foreign minister citing his “disrespect’’ of the Bosnian state when he met Dodik.

They said they were primarily angered by the lack of a Bosnian flag during the meeting with Dodik, and Lavrov’s open support for the Bosnian Serb blocking of a NATO membership bid. Lavrov’s visit to the Balkans coincided with the 25th anniversary of the signing of the U.S.-mediated Dayton peace agreement that ended a four-year war in Bosnia in the 1990s.

Although the deal ended the bloodshed, it left Bosnia largely dysfunctional and divided roughly in half between the Bosnian Serb Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. Dodik, a staunch pro-Russian politician, has long been advocating Bosnian Serb secession and joining neighboring Serbia.

As deaths rise, vaccine opponents find a foothold in Bosnia

September 30, 2021

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Hospitals across Bosnia are again filling with COVID-19 patients gasping for air, and the country's pandemic death toll is rising. Yet vaccination sites are mostly empty and unused coronavirus vaccines are fast approaching their expiration dates.

When the European Union launched its mass vaccination campaign, non-member Bosnia struggled along with most other Balkan nations to get supplies. By late spring, however, hundreds of thousands of doses started pouring into the country.

But after an initial rush of people clamoring to get jabbed, demand for shots quickly slowed. It is now down to a trickle even though Bosnia has Europe's highest coronavirus mortality rate at 4.5%, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Dr. Edin Drljevic, an infectious disease specialist at one of Bosnia’s largest hospitals, in Sarajevo, thinks the disconnect is partly a result of authorities failing to properly promote vaccination against COVID-19.

“At first, we only had negative publicity because of the failure to secure vaccines, but once the vaccines finally started arriving, mainly through donations, people became picky,” he said. So far, just under 13% of Bosnia’s 3.3 million people have been fully vaccinated, among the lowest shares in Europe. Even people willing to get inoculated are putting off shots so they can choose the vaccine they want instead of receiving whichever one is available.

Bosnia currently administers the Pfizer-BioNTech, Sputnik V, Sinopharm and AstraZeneca vaccines. AstraZeneca's product, while the most widely available, appears to enjoy the least trust because of extensive news coverage when numerous European countries temporary suspended its use due to concerns about possible, rare side effects.

“The bottom line is, people are poorly informed and lack up-to-date knowledge,” Drljevic said. With so few takers, over 50,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses have already expired; an additional 350,000 doses are set to expire in October

The pandemic has amplified the many problems of the Balkan nation, which is still struggling to recover from a devastating interethnic war in 1992-95. Nearly half of Bosnia's people live under or close to the poverty line.

The country has an extreme shortage of doctors and nurses, as well as rampant public corruption. Several elected and appointed government officials are under investigation or on trial for suspected malfeasance in the procurement of needed medical equipment and supplies during the pandemic.

The high-profile cases make Bosnians susceptible to claims that their leaders are acting in concert with corrupt pharmaceutical companies and are “happy to sacrifice them” for personal gain, according to Slavo Kukic, a sociology professor at Mostar University in southern Bosnia.

“People in Bosnia generally distrust the authorities. They (have been) lied to and manipulated for the past 30 years, and it makes it easier (for the anti-vaccine movement) to convince them that it is wise to not protect themselves from the virus, that it is a risk worth taking,” Kukic said.

While vaccine hesitancy in Bosnia might be among the most extreme globally, the country is not the only one in Europe facing that problem. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies voiced concern Thursday at low immunization rates in parts of the continent, calling for urgent action to tackle vaccine hesitancy and misinformation.

In a press release, it warned that disinformation about vaccines’ side effects and potential risks, coupled with the introduction of vaccine passes was “sparking anger and violence” and has led to “concerning incidents against medical services, media and the general public” in the United Kingdom and numerous EU member including Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and France.

"Without addressing people’s concerns and fears, vaccines may not find their way into the arms of those most at risk, even where doses are available,” IFRC regional director for Europe Birgitte Bischoff Ebbesen said. “Increased community engagement is needed to tackle vaccine hesitancy, myths and disinformation.”

In Bosnia, health professionals and vaccine recipients note the absence of a coordinated, hard-hitting national campaign to counter vaccine hesitancy. There are no public service ads, billboards, incentives or mass mailings encouraging people to get vaccinated or advising them how to do it.

Meanwhile, activists with strong anti-vaccine opinions dominate the discussion on social networks and in the comment sections of news sites. An opposition lawmaker, Lana Prlic, announced on Facebook last week that she had received her second dose of AstraZeneca vaccine and urged followers to get their shots as soon as possible “to protect themselves and others." Her post attracted over 28,000 comments in 24 hours, most of them filled with insults and misinformation.

Jagoda Savic, Bosnia’s most vocal anti-vaccination activist for over a decade, asserts with pride that her profile has grown during the pandemic. “People stop me in the street to say hello, to congratulate me and ask me to keep up the good work,” she said. “I get so many messages (of support) on Facebook that I can no longer respond to all of them.”

Savic claims that coronavirus vaccines were not put through standard safety testing before being approved for use, and that they have caused severe adverse reactions in 1.2 million people in the European Union, the U.K. and the United States.

Similar claims have been made in other countries, and scientists and health authorities have repeatedly rejected them. Savic countered that information from reputable sources may cause doubts about the “dangers” of vaccines, but “in their heart and soul, people know the truth.”

Bosnia has reported close to 240,000 confirmed cases and more than 10,500 deaths in the pandemic. Savic asserts the figures are inflated, arguing incorrectly that that molecular PCR tests — the primary method for diagnosing COVID-19 — produce a huge number of false positives.

“Unfortunately, I have the impression that we are simply letting anti-vaccination lobbies and movements highjack the public debate and spread misinformation that discourages people from getting immunized,” Bakir Nakas, a retired infectious disease specialist, said.

While waiting to get her second coronavirus vaccine shot in Sarajevo last week, cancer patient Mirjana Golijanin said she thinks some fellow Bosnians are refusing because they perceive such behavior as a way of opposing the powerful and rich.

“I think it is simply an expression of the need to offer some sort of resistance, even if all they are resisting is a vaccine,” Golijanin said.

Bosnia doctors appeal for respect of rules amid virus surge

November 19, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Doctors in Bosnia, one of the hardest-hit countries in the Balkans with the new coronavirus, are appealing to citizens to respect preventive measures to help the ailing health system.

As Bosnia battles a surge in infections and a mounting death toll, authorities have converted one third of all hospital wards to treat COVID-19 patients. The impoverished country has one of the weakest health systems in Europe that was ravaged during the 1992-95 war and further plagued by mismanagement, lack of funds and corruption.

Authorities on Thursday reported more than 1,000 new infections in the nation of 3.5 million people while 64 people died in the past 24 hours. “Our message to the citizens is to respect all recommended measures, including wearing face masks, keeping distance and avoiding bigger gatherings,” said Dr. Amir Cehajic, an internal medicine specialist at the Abdulah Nakas General Hospital in Sarajevo. “By bigger gatherings, I mean more than two (people.)”

On Thursday, Cehajic was making his round on the COVID-19 ward, where patients could be seen on oxygen support. As doctors checked the patients, nurses made the patients' beds. One patient could be heard apparently calling doctor Cehajic by his first name.

Cehajic said his hospital takes in patients with moderate cases of COVID-19 while those in life-threatening situations are sent to other facilities. Still, the hospital is nearly full round-the-clock with around 90 patients and more coming in on a daily basis. Some patients are discharged to make way for new ones.

“We are functioning with huge effort, we are on the verge of our capacity, human and technical,” Dr. Bilala Oglecevac said Wednesday.

Pandemic heaps new fears and trauma on war-scarred Bosnians

November 06, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Memories of the Bosnian War are shaping Zdenka Sutalo's perception of the coronavirus. The 58-year-old unemployed woman attends group therapy sessions to work through the trauma of the 1992-95 conflict. As a young woman in Sarajevo, she endured bombardment, hunger, electricity shortages and was forced to break off her university studies for good. Today she sometimes has to be reminded to see the novel virus as a serious risk.

“The war was my most difficult experience in life,” she said after a recent therapy session that included painting pinecones and exercising in a Sarajevo park with others. “As for the pandemic, the world survived plague and cholera and those are now just water under the bridge.”

As coronavirus cases surge in Bosnia, the pandemic is heaping more trouble on an impoverished nation that has never recovered economically or psychologically from a war that killed 100,000 people and forced 2.2 million from their homes.

Bosnian health authorities estimate that about half of the the Balkan nation's nearly 3.5 million people have suffered some degree of trauma resulting from the war. Mental health professionals fear that the pandemic will now exacerbate mental health problems and other health risks, and are speaking of a surge of new patients coming into their practices in recent months.

Tihana Majstorovic, a Sarajevo psychologist who led the pinecone-painting session, said the war experience was leading some Bosnians to downplay the threat of the pandemic, increasing the risk of its spread.

“People who survived the war perceive danger differently. Often, if they are not hungry, cold or have mortars exploding over their heads, they do not feel they are in danger,” said Majstorovic, who works for Menssana, a non-governmental mental health group in Sarajevo.

It has made them prone to “downplaying the threat, to behaving less responsibly than they should," Majstorovic said. “It is not at all a healthy mechanism for adapting to a world threatened by an invisible virus.”

Remzija Setic, a clinical psychologist, said he, too, sees war survivors “recklesslessly” downplaying the risks of the virus. But he also has patients who are suffering from heightened anxiety because some aspects of living through this pandemic are reminiscent of the war: being trapped indoors, seeing public spaces as dangerous, concern over getting food and separation from family and friends.

On top of that, pandemic fatigue is setting in. Setic said he is sees a growing number of people, including many without diagnosed mental disorders, who complain of extreme irritability and physical exhaustion. That fatigue is also leading some young Bosnians without memory of the war to be cavalier about the risk of a virus that has infected nearly 56,000 people and killed more than 1,350 in the country.

“During the past seven to eight months, our population in general has grown exhausted out of an abundance of information, so they are starting to resist,” Setic said. In some ways, Bosnia is better equipped than some other countries to handle the challenges.

Because of the trauma from the war, the past-quarter century of recovery has included creating psychological support networks for a traumatized population. Thanks in part to initially abundant financial support from Western governments and international organizations, some 70 community-based mental health centers were established throughout the country.

“It is a fact that we have a lot of relevant experience ... and that we’ve learned many lessons that we could share,” said Goran Cerkez, the assistant health minister in the larger of Bosnia’s two highly autonomous regions.

Cerkez, who led a post-war effort to reform Bosnia’s mental health care system, noted that people from the neighboring nations of Serbia and Croatia — also born from the bloody breakup of ex-Yugoslavia — have been calling Bosnian hotlines set up to help people deal with pandemic-related stress.

Based on his experiences, he expects the psychological impact of the coronavirus pandemic, both in his country and globally, to be longer and more severe than its immediate medical impact. “Many (collective) traumatic experiences have some things in common," Cerkez said. “They produce a sense of hopelessness and insecurity, a sense of uncertainty because it is impossible to predict how long they will last.”

After criticism, Bosnia sets up tents for freezing migrants

January 01, 2021

BIHAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Trying to resolve a humanitarian disaster, the Bosnian military set up tents Friday for hundreds of migrants who have been stuck in a burned-out refugee camp that has no facilities to fend off freezing winter weather.

Bosnia has faced international criticism for leaving some 1,000 migrants without shelter after a fire engulfed the squalid Lipa refugee camp near its northwest border with Croatia over a week ago. The armed forces said Friday that about 150 soldiers had arrived to put up tents for the migrants, which will be run by the International Organization for Migration.

Earlier Friday, the migrants held a protest to highlight the horrendous conditions they are facing in Bosnia. Aid groups said hundreds of migrants rejected food and held up banners calling for international help.

The authorities announced earlier this week that they would move the migrants from Lipa to a former army compound in central Bosnia but plan was rejected after local residents organized protests. The migrants spent 24 hours in a convoy of buses, waiting to move, but ended up back in the burned-out Lipa camp instead. For the past two nights, they have lit fires to warm up at the muddy camp site.

Bosnia has struggled with the influx of thousands of people fleeing war and poverty in their countries in the Mideast, Africa and Asia. Migrants mostly flock to Bosnia's northwestern corner, which borders European Union member Croatia, from where they hope to move toward wealthier European countries. But many have reported violent pushbacks by Croatian border forces as well as hostility from Bosnian residents.

Migrants from Bosnia camp kept in buses as relocation halted

December 30, 2020

BIHAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Hundreds of migrants from a burned-out tent camp in northwest Bosnia have spent the night in buses after an attempt to relocate them failed, reflecting confusion in the Balkan country’s dealing with the crisis.

Bosnian authorities sent buses on Tuesday to transfer the migrants from the much-criticized Lipa camp to an army barracks in central Bosnia but this was canceled after locals there organized protests to prevent the relocation. On Wednesday morning, migrants were still inside the buses, local media reported.

The Lipa camp near Bosnia's border with European Union member state Croatia was demolished in a fire last week and lacked basic facilities such as running water or heating. Some 1,000 migrants were stranded there for days during a spate of snowy and windy winter weather that followed the fire.

The situation has prompted warnings by EU officials and aid groups of a looming humanitarian disaster and increased pressure on Bosnia to act to move the migrants away from the camp. The troubled Balkan country that went through a devastating war in the 1990s has been struggling with the influx of thousands of people seeking to reach Western Europe. Bickering among Bosnia's ethnically divided authorities has prevented an organized response to the crisis, leaving some 3,000 migrants sleeping rough or in makeshift tents.

Most migrants are staying in the northwest corner of Bosnia, where they hope to cross into Croatia before moving on toward wealthy EU nations. To get to Croatia, migrants use mountainous illegal routes and often face pushbacks and alleged violence at the hands of Croatia's police.

Hundreds of migrants freezing in heavy snow in Bosnia camp

December 27, 2020

BIHAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Hundreds of migrants were stranded Saturday in a squalid, burnt-out tent camp in Bosnia as heavy snow fell in the country and winter temperatures suddenly dropped. Migrants at the Lipa camp in northwest Bosnia wrapped themselves in blankets and sleeping bags to protect against the biting winds in the region, which borders European Union member Croatia.

A fire earlier this week destroyed much of the camp near the town of Bihac that already was harshly criticized by international officials and aid groups as being inadequate for housing refugees and migrants.

Despite the fire, Bosnian authorities have failed to find new accommodations for the migrants at Lipa, leaving around 1,000 people stuck in the cold, with no facilities or heat, eating only meager food parcels provided by aid groups.

"Snow has fallen, sub-zero temperatures, no heating, nothing," the International Organization for Migration’s chief of mission in Bosnia, Peter Van Der Auweraert, tweeted. “This is not how anyone should live. We need political bravery and action now.”

Bosnia has become a bottleneck for thousands of migrants hoping to reach Western Europe. Most are stuck in Bosnia’s northwest Krajina region as other areas in the ethnically divided nation have refused to accept them. The EU has warned Bosnia that thousands of migrants face a freezing winter without shelter, and it has urged the country’s bickering politicians to set aside their differences and take action.

On Saturday, migrants crowded at the camp to receive water and food provided by Bosnia's Red Cross as police sought to maintain order. Some migrants wore face shields to protect them from coronavirus.

“We are living like animals. Even animals are living better than us!" said a man from Pakistan who identified himself only by his first name, Kasim. “If they not help us, we will die, so please help us.”

Plans to relocate the migrants temporarily to a closed facility in central Bihac have prompted protests by residents. Left without a solution, migrants put down carboard on the floor and set up improvised barriers for privacy inside the only standing tent at the Lipa camp. Some people held their wet feet above the small fires that migrants lit outside to warm up, while others wrapped up tight in blankets for warmth. Many migrants were wearing sneakers despite the snow.

To get to Croatia, migrants often use illegal routes over a mountainous area along the border. Many have complained of violence and pushbacks by the Croatian police.

'Big win for democracy': Bosnian city of Mostar gets a vote

December 19, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Irma Baralija is looking forward to Sunday, when she intends to vote and hopes to win her race as the southern Bosnian city of Mostar holds its first local election in 12 years.

To make that vote possible in her hometown, the 36-year-old Baralija had to sue Bosnia in the European Court of Human Rights for letting a stalemate between two major nationalist political parties prevent her, along about 100,000 other Mostar residents, from voting or running in a municipal election for over a decade.

By winning in court in October 2019, Baralija believes she has “busted the myth (that nationalist parties) have been feeding to us, that an individual cannot move things forward, that we matter only as members of our ethnic groups.”

Parties representing only one ethnic group have dominated Bosnian politics since the end of the country’s devastating 1992-95 war, which pitted its three main ethnic factions — Serbs, Croats and Muslims — against each other after the break-up of Yugoslavia.

“I hope that my example will inspire citizens of Mostar, when they vote on Sunday, to be brave, to realize that as individuals we can bring positive change,” said Baralija, who is running for a city council seat on the ticket of the small, multi-ethnic Our Party.

Divided between Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats, who fought fiercely for control over the city during the 1990s conflict, Mostar has not held a local poll since 2008, when Bosnia’s constitutional court declared its election rules to be discriminatory and ordered that they be changed.

The dominant nationalist Bosniak and Croat political parties, the SDA and the HDZ respectively, have spent over a decade failing to agree about how to do that. Meanwhile, Mostar was run by a de facto acting mayor, HDZ’s Ljubo Beslic, and his office, which included SDA representatives, with no local council to oversee their work or the allocation of nearly 230 million euros from the city’s coffers they have spent over the years.

Left without fully functioning institutions, Mostar — one of the impoverished Balkan country's main tourist destinations — has seen its infrastructure crumble, trash repeatedly pile up on its streets and hazardous waste and wastewater treatment sludge dumped in its only landfill, which was supposed to be for non-hazardous waste.

An agreement between the two parties, endorsed by the top European Union and U.S. diplomats in Bosnia, was finally reached in June — eight months after the court in Strasbourg had ruled in favor of Baralija and gave Bosnia six months to amend its election laws so a vote can be held in Mostar.

Mostar is divided in half by the Neretva River. During the war, Croats moved to the western side and Muslims to the east. Since the fighting stopped, the city has had two post offices, two electricity and water suppliers, two phone networks, two public hospitals and more — one crumbling set for each ethnic group.

On Sunday, several small, multi-ethnic parties will be vying for seats in the city council after campaigning on bread-and-butter issues. But the nationalist HDZ and SDA parties hope that, among them, they will secure a two-thirds majority in the council and keep their grip on power.

While acknowledging that the nationalists have armies of faithful voters whom they mobilize by stoking ethnic mistrust, non-nationalist election candidates in Mostar hope the past 12 years has shown that those two parties are too corrupt and incompetent.

“I think that many people finally realized that the abstract, ethnic interests are meaningless while their children are leaving (Mostar) in droves in search of decent jobs and a decent life” elsewhere in Europe, said Amna Popovac, a candidate from the multi-ethnic Platform for Progress party.

The nationalists are now promising to fix the city’s many problems as if “Martians and not they were running Mostar, unchecked, for the past 12 years,” she added. Miljan Rupar’s name will also be on the ballot. The 35-year-old, who is running as a candidate from the multi-ethnic Social Democrat Party, decided to get involved in politics after realizing that over 38 friends and relatives, including his sister, had left Mostar “for good” in search of a better life abroad.

Rupar wants his city focused on the future, just like the international school where he teaches physics, the United World College branch in Mostar. The school is one of 17 around the globe and run by a movement founded in 1962 with the aim of overcoming Cold War divisions by bringing high-achieving youngsters from all over to live and learn together.

“When I walk into the classroom or attend our bi-weekly assembly and see students and teachers from all over the world, including from various parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who share the same values and goals, it gives me hope,” he said.

Political journalist Faruk Kajtaz, however, thinks that hope could prove to be treacherous in the divided city, despite local voters’ well-justified grievances. He notes that not just Mostar but all of Bosnia has long been politically and administratively fragmented along ethnic lines.

“Maybe too much is expected from the people of Mostar,” he said. “(But) just the fact that citizens of Mostar will finally get a chance to vote for their local legislators is in itself a big win for democracy.”

Kemal Softic in Mostar, Bosnia, contributed to this report.

Bosnia: Unnerved by virus denial, survivors mourn their dead

October 03, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Denis Zekic was on his daily video call with his parents in Bosnia in early August when his father said he might be coming down with a fever. Less than a month later, both of Zekic’s parents were dead, joining the people who would be counted as the coronavirus pandemic’s global toll climbed toward 1 million.

Zekic says his mother, Sefketa, and father, Muharem, both were comparatively healthy before they died at age 68. They were rule followers who practiced social distancing in the city of Zenica. Before his father was hospitalized, his mother wore gloves and a face mask while caring for him, but she ended up as a COVID-19 patient in the same intensive care wing, Zekic said.

“I saw her walk into the hospital on her own feet. From a distance. With protective masks covering our faces,” he said. “Honestly, I believed that she would pull through.” Yet Zekic and his sister soon discovered that some neighbors and acquaintances had little sympathy for their sudden double loss, but plenty of opinions and, at times, cruel disdain. One time, a random man taunted the siblings in a store, alleging that authorities had paid them to say the coronavirus killed their parents.

“How to respond to that?” Zekic said. Bosnia’s coronavirus rebels have grown increasingly vocal, and hostile, in recent months as the number of confirmed virus cases rose in the small, impoverished Balkan nation of 3.5 million. Social media and the comment sections of news websites have become platforms for vicious arguments that occasionally have spilled over into invasive confrontations.

Several recent studies of coronavirus-related media content in Bosnia conducted by the independent organization Mediacentar Sarajevo concluded that pandemic-related comments on news sites are dominated by “offensive and disparaging” remarks.

“We are now paying the price for years of neglect of our education system, our political system, for our media illiteracy,” said Elvira Jukic Mujkic, editor-in-chief of its online magazine, Media.ba.

A conference in Bosnia sponsored by the European Union this week brought together fact-checkers, science journalists and experts from the Balkans and the EU, to discuss disinformation during the pandemic. One of the conclusions from the event stated: “The damage inflicted by fringe ‘scientists’ is pervasive and grave. The scientific community in the (Balkan) region does not currently feel empowered to respond to this.”

While other countries around the world also have outspoken contingents of coronavirus conspiracy theorists, the voices of the virus deniers have the potential to echo farther in Bosnia, which bears economic, political and social scars from the fratricidal ethnic war fought there during 1992-95.

The pandemic has amplified the country’s many problems, including an extreme shortage of doctors and nurses, and rampant public corruption. A number of prominent public and government officials are under investigation on suspicion of malfeasance in the procurement of desperately needed medical equipment.

“After years of declining trust in government and public institutions, public response to the perceived incompetence of our authorities in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic was to put in doubt everything they say,” psychologist Tanja Tankosic-Girt said.

The allegations further undermine the public trust on which government efforts to curb the spread of the infection in Bosnia depend. The country has a low number of confirmed virus cases compared with countries with a lot more people, but nearly 60% of its nearly 28,000 confirmed cases were reported since the end of July.

More people around the country nevertheless are bending or ignoring social distancing rules, gathering in uncomfortably close quarters and ditching face masks. At the same time, public discourse around the coronavirus, like around many other issues in the country, is growing increasingly divisive, Tankosic-Girt said.

“Black-and-white thinking is becoming so prevalent that we are reaching the point of a complete loss of empathy,” she said. The death in early August of 37-year-old philanthropist Belma Soljanin, the director of a maternal and child health organization in the capital, Sarajevo, triggered days of heated online discussions that unraveled quite a few long friendships.

Just hours after news of Soljanin’s death broke, people were sifting through her mother’s personal Facebook account and sharing a post in which she alleged her daughter, who had been hospitalized in a COVID-19 isolation ward while in late pregnancy, died because of doctors’ negligence.

The post became fodder for virus deniers, who quickly took over the conversation. “Coronavirus is a hoax. Even her mother says she wasn’t infected, but you just go on wearing your face masks and believing the lies they serve you,” one person wrote. “While you hide from the inexistent virus, they are ripping you off, remove face masks and be free.”

The head of the Institute of Emergency Medical Care in Sarajevo, Dr. Adem Zalihic, said he is certain that “virus deniers are contributing to the spread of the infection and the number of deaths” by convincing people they should not wear face masks and maintain social distance.

“The virus is among us. It infects and kills people, I do not understand how they can deny it despite all the evidence. How can they sleep at night?” Zalihic said. Pulmonologist Besim Prnjavorac, the director of the COVID-19 hospital in the central city of Tesanj, said people tend to dismiss COVID-19 as “something that happens to others” or is “nonexistent” until it is too late.

“It is only when their loved ones get sick or even die that they realize the coronavirus is real and very, very dangerous,” Prnjavorac said. Emira Telic, 38, who is currently recovering from a severe case of COVID-19 in the Tesanj hospital, has all the proof she needs to refute the deniers: the breaths she struggles to take.

“I was the first to think COVID (-19) was a lie, but look at me now,” Telic said. “Now, I am sure that it is not a lie.”

Video Journalist Almir Alic contributed from Zenica, Bosnia.

EU urges reforms in Bosnia on 25th anniversary of peace deal

November 21, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — The European Union's foreign policy chief used the 25th anniversary of the peace agreement that ended the Bosnian War to urge Bosnia's political leaders to overcome their persistent ethnic divisions and prepare their nation to join the EU fold.

“We have to commemorate the past, but we have to look to the future,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said during a visit to Sarajevo for Saturday's anniversary, adding that the U.S.-brokered peace agreement for Bosnia concluded “one of the most shameful episodes in the modern history of Europe.”

The peace agreement, initialed at a U.S. Air Force base outside Dayton, Ohio on Nov. 21, 2015 and formally signed in Paris a few weeks later, ended the 44-month war in which Bosnia's three main ethnic factions — Muslim Bosniaks, Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs — fought for control after the break-up of Yugoslavia.

Over 100,000 people were killed during the war, most of them Bosniaks, and upward of 2 million, or over half of Bosnia's population, were driven from their homes during the conflict. While it stopped the bloodshed, the peace agreement formalized the ethnic divisions in Bosnia by establishing a complicated and fragmented state structure linked by weak joint institutions. Over the years, the country’s complex administrative system has allowed its ethno-nationalist elites to take full control of all levers of government and plunder public coffers with impunity while engaging in the same arguments that led to the war.

The European Union accepted Bosnia’s membership application in 2016, but its government has failed to make the deep structural reforms required before the country can move forward with the process of joining the EU. The bloc expects to see changes in how Bosnia's judiciary and economy are run, intensified efforts to fight corruption, the safeguarding of human rights, among other reforms.

The EU priorities are largely shared by Bosnia’s citizens, but continue to be sidelined by their ethnic leaders under the cover of nationalist rhetoric. After meeting with members of the country’s tripartite presidency, Borrell said Bosnia’s “future is European” but that in order to get there “authorities must step up their efforts to deliver on the reform priorities.”

Bosnia marks 25 years since inking of US-brokered peace deal

November 20, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — As their ethnic leaders gathered around a table outside Dayton, Ohio, to initial a U.S.-brokered peace deal a quarter-century ago, Edisa Sehic and Janko Samoukovic still were enemies in a war in Bosnia that killed over 100,000 people.

But the two, one an ethnic Bosniak woman and the other an ethnic Serb man, have often come together in recent years to visit schools and town halls where they talk about the futility of war from their first-hand experiences.

In many ways, Bosnia today is a country at peace, a testament to the success of the Dayton Accords, which ended more than 3 1/2 years of bloodshed when they were endorsed 25 years ago on Saturday. But more than a generation after the shooting and shelling stopped, full peace still feels elusive in Bosnia, where the April 1992-Dec. 1995 war gave rise to an ethnic cleansing campaign and Europe's first genocide since World War II.

The country's three ethnic groups — Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats — live in fear of renewed conflict as their nationalist leaders continue to stoke ethnic animosities for political gain.

Some Bosnians hope the election of Joe Biden as the next U.S. president will bolster change by renewing Western interest in the country, one of Europe's poorest. Biden visited Bosnia in 2009 as vice president, becoming the last key U.S. leader to do so.

When the Dayton peace agreement was reached in 1995, Sehic was a soldier with the Bosnian government army and Samoukovic was fighting with Bosnian Serb troops seeking to dismember the country and unite the territory they claimed for their own with neighboring Serbia.

The war was sparked by the break-up of Yugoslavia, which led Bosnia to declare its independence despite opposition from ethnic Serbs, who made up about one-third of its ethnically and religiously mixed population.

Armed and backed by neighboring Serbia, Bosnian Serbs conquered 60% of Bosnia’s territory in less than two months, committing atrocities against their Bosniak and Croat compatriots. Ethnic Croats and Bosniaks also fought against each other for a period of 11 months.

Before the war was over, some 100,000 people had been killed and upward of 2 million, or over a half of the country’s population, were driven from their homes. Samoukovic, a Bosnian Serb who like Sehic, was 23-years-old in 1992, did not crave war. He chose to not leave his home in Pazaric, a small town on the outskirts of Sarajevo. But he and his father were soon arrested by Bosniaks and taken to a makeshift internment camp where prisoners were beaten, used as forced labor and deprived of food.

Sehic, a Muslim, had taken up arms in the early days of the conflict after her older brother was severely injured while defending Maglaj, their hometown in central Bosnia, from advancing Bosnian Serb forces.

She met her husband on the frontline and mourned his death in battle three months after giving birth to their daughter and six months before the war’s end. Bosniaks were by far the greatest victims in the conflict in terms of numbers, accounting for about 80% of the people killed in the conflict.

The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia, reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, was considered a major U.S foreign policy achievement for the administration of President Bill Clinton.

The agreement was formally signed in Paris on December 14, 1995 by the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia - Alija Izetbegovic, Franjo Tudjman and Slobodan Milosevic, respectively. Clinton and 50 other world leaders attending the signing ceremony.

Under the accords, nearly 60,000 international troops were deployed to Bosnia in December 1995 as part of a NATO-led mission to maintain peace and demarcate territory awarded to two semi-autonomous entities created by the agreement: Serb-run Republika Srpska and a federation shared by Bosniaks and Croats.

“When the (peace) agreement was reached, I was happy that there will be no more blood and death around us, hopeful that together we can start building a better future,” Sehic said. “But as time went by, I realized that the shooting had stopped, but little else had changed.”

While it brought an end to the fighting, the Dayton Accords formalized the ethnic divisions by establishing a complicated and fragmented state structure linked by weak joint institutions. The deal “was essentially an armistice struck between a collection of warlords who are still present in the country, but had refashioned themselves as political leaders,” said Jasmin Mujanovic, a U.S.-based political scientist of Bosnian origin.

In the immediate post-war years, the international community kept Bosnia on a reform course, pressuring its leaders to accept painful compromises in return for financial and other support. But over a decade ago, as the international focus shifted to other global crises, Bosnia was mostly left to its own devices, exposed to the growing influence of Russia, China and Turkey.

Increasingly employing divisive nationalist rhetoric as a smoke screen, the political elites of all ethnic stripes have taken control of all levers of government for the benefit of their partisan loyalists.

Their “criminal-political syndicates ... have been blocking significant democratic reforms for decades,” Mujanovic said. Facing the imminent danger of economic collapse, Bosnia is in dire need of constitutional reform, but the process “cannot even commence” without direct engagement of the United States, Mujanovic believes.

Some in Bosnia, where nearly half of the population lives under or close to the poverty line, hope that U.S. interest will increase under Biden. “I hope that we shall be on the agenda of the Biden administration so that we can finally put behind what happened (during the war) and look into the future,” said Haris Silajdzic, Bosnia’s war-time foreign minister and a Bosniak member of its government's delegation in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995.

While agreeing that only the U.S. can help fix Bosnia’s broken constitution, Mujanovic said real change will also require “the will, the pressure and engagement” of the country’s citizens. It is sometimes an uphill battle.

Samoukovic says his own son, now 26, was attracted by the lure of aggressive nationalist rhetoric when he was in high school but has since come to appreciate his father's embrace of reconciliation. Bosnians could leave the war behind “if people listened to our stories instead of having politicians on the evening news constantly filling their ears with hate speech," Samoukovic said. "But most politicians don’t care about our happiness, they do whatever what works for them.”

Sehic, for her part, says she is driven by a sense or responsibility to make sure that neither her daughter "nor any other child will live through the same horrors as I did.”

Sarajevo's landmark hotel faces hard times amid pandemic

July 30, 2020

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — The bright yellow Hotel Holiday in downtown Sarajevo has seen good times and bad times in its 37-year history. Mostly, it has been a symbol of survival in the once-turbulent Bosnian capital.

Now the boxy landmark is in danger once again, with the coronavirus pandemic leaving it with few guests. Bosnia, like the rest of the Balkans, has been hit hard by the virus. Cases have been rising in Bosnia since mid-May, when a strict lockdown was lifted and many people seemed to start disregarding social distancing rules and ditching masks.

The country of 3.5 million has reported nearly 10,500 cases and 294 deaths, many since the restrictions were eased. Amid the pandemic, there are hardly any tourists or business travelers visiting the capital, leaving the hotel with many empty rooms.

It originally opened as part of the Holiday Inn hotel chain and was luxurious accommodation for royalty, movie stars and other dignitaries who came to the 1984 Winter Olympics. Less than a decade later, it was ground zero for the bloody siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s and an uneasy shelter for the many foreign journalists who arrived to cover the conflict.

“The hotel was working all the time through the war,” said general manager Zahid Bukva, who has been employed there since it opened in 1983. “There was so much shelling and sniping aimed at our hotel, it was devastating,” he said. “There wasn’t a single window left intact here. But even then, we fought and we provided the service to these foreign journalists.”

The hotel, controversial from the start because of its bright color and Lego-like structure, was often targeted by Serbs in the nearby hills during their three-year siege of the capital that left thousands dead and injured in the capital.

It survived several direct hits from grenades and shells, as well as constant sniper fire that prompted journalists and staff to use side doors instead of the main lobby entrance. Just before the start of the war in 1992, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic — now a convicted war criminal — used the hotel as his headquarters, surrounded by armed men wearing masks to hide their identities.

They were believed to be Serbian security officers who fired their sniper rifles from the hotel at peaceful protesters in April 1992 — the incident believed to have triggered the start of the civil war that left more than 100,000 dead and millions homeless.

As journalists rushed to Sarajevo to cover the escalating tensions, the Holiday Inn became the place to be. At the end of a dangerous day, they often swapped their front-line experiences and stories in a ground-floor restaurant.

“This hotel became something as a front line for a period,” said Kenneth Morrison, a history professor at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, who wrote a book about it. “It was used exclusively by journalists, aid workers and some diplomats,” he said. “The courage and resourcefulness of the staff during those difficult times is an incredible story in itself.”

He said the hotel “faced many challenges in its relatively short history.” "It's only 37 years old, but in many ways, the challenges it’s facing now are far more significant,” Morrison said of the pandemic.

“One can only hope that this building, which survived all that’s been thrown at it, can survive this latest crisis,” he said. Hotel director Hajro Rovcanin believes it will. “The hotel survived through a lot, and I think that we will overcome this corona crisis,” he said.

Associated Press writer Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed.

Bosnian women set off for all-women convoy in Turkey

March 4, 2018

Around 200 Bosnian women on Saturday set off from Sarajevo to Istanbul to join an all-women convoy to raise awareness about the suffering of women and young girls imprisoned in Syria by the regime forces.

The International Conscience Convoy which describes itself as the “voice of the oppressed women in Syria” will set off from Istanbul on Tuesday with the participation of women from nearly 55 countries.

Among the women joining from Bosnia are women who shared the same fate with Syrian women during the Bosnian war between 1992-1995 including members of the Mothers of the Srebrenica group.

The President of the Association of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves, Munira Subasic joined the send off ceremony of the Bosnian women. Speaking to Anadolu Agency, she said:

Srebrenica’s mothers are well aware of what pain means, now Syrian women are experiencing the same pain we went through

“We are in the 21st century, the United Nations, the U.S. and Russia need to be ashamed,” she added.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, the Balkan Cultural Alliance Association (BAKIDER) representative Enida Gujo said that the Bosnian women joined the convoy with the support of Turkey.

“On March 08 we will all together call out for help for the Syrian women held in Syrian prisons,” she said.

Nearly 150 buses will take part in the journey which will make stops at Izmir, Sakarya, Ankara and Adana cities before reaching the southern Hatay province at the Turkey-Syria border.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180304-bosnian-women-set-off-for-all-women-convoy-in-turkey/.

Bosnian court acquits ex-Srebrenica commander of war crimes

October 09, 2017

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Bosnia's war crimes court on Monday acquitted the wartime commander of Srebrenica, who was accused of committing atrocities against Serbs during the 1992-95 Balkan conflict.

The acquittal of Naser Oric immediately prompted anger from Serbian leaders, with Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin saying the court ruling "threatens security, trust and reconciliation in the whole of the Balkans."

Oric was accused of war crimes against three Serb prisoners of war who were slain in villages around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in the early days of the conflict. A panel of judges presiding over the trial ruled Monday the prosecution did not present evidence proving the case against Oric.

Oric had previously been tried by a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he was also acquitted in 2008. Oric is seen as a hero by many Muslim Bosnians for his role in defending Srebrenica, where Serb forces massacred some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in 1995. The Srebrenica massacre, the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II, is the only episode of Bosnia's war to be defined as genocide by two U.N. courts.

Serbs continue to claim the 1995 Srebrenica slaughter was an act of revenge by uncontrolled troops because they say that soldiers under Oric's command killed thousands of Serbs in the villages surrounding the eastern town.

"It is clear that we will have to fight for justice ourselves," said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. Still, he urged Serbs not to "utter a hard word against Bosniak Muslim) neighbors so that we can build friendship with them and build a future together with them."

Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik said Oric's acquittal showed there was no justice for Serbs. He called on Serb judges and prosecutors to abandon their posts in Bosnia's top court and prosecution office and urged all Bosnian Serb political representatives "to gather around the cause of declaring the (two institutions) illegitimate."

The Bosnian war pitted the country's three main ethnic factions — Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims — against each other after Bosnia split from what was then Yugoslavia. More than 100,000 people were killed in the conflict before a peace deal was brokered in 1995.

AP Writer Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade, Serbia.

Unrepentant Mladic sentenced to life for Bosnia atrocities

November 22, 2017

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An unrepentant Ratko Mladic, the bullish Bosnian Serb general whose forces rained shells and snipers' bullets on Sarajevo and carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, was convicted Wednesday of genocide and other crimes and sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Defiant to the last, Mladic was ejected from a courtroom at the United Nations' Yugoslav war crimes tribunal after yelling at judges: "Everything you said is pure lies. Shame on you!" He was dispatched to a neighboring room to watch on a TV screen as Presiding Judge Alphons Orie pronounced him guilty of 10 counts that also included war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Human-rights organizations hailed the convictions as proof that even top military brass long considered untouchable cannot evade justice forever. Mladic spent years on the run before his arrest in 2011.

"This landmark verdict marks a significant moment for international justice and sends out a powerful message around the world that impunity cannot and will not be tolerated," said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International's Europe director.

For prosecutors, it was a fitting end to a 23-year effort to mete out justice at the U.N. tribunal for atrocities committed during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s. Mladic's conviction signaled the end of the final trial before the tribunal closes its doors by the end of the year.

But legal battles will continue. Mladic's attorneys vowed to appeal his convictions on 10 charges related to a string of atrocities from the beginning of the 1992-95 Bosnian war to its bitter end. "The defense team considers this judgment to be erroneous, and there will be an appeal, and we believe that the appeal will correct the errors of the trial chamber," Mladic lawyer Dragan Ivetic said.

Mladic's son, Darko, said his father told him after the verdict that the tribunal was a "NATO commission ... trying to criminalize a legal endeavor of Serbian people in times of civil war to protect itself from the aggression."

Presiding Judge Alphons Orie started the hearing by reading out a litany of horrors perpetrated by forces under Mladic's control. "Detainees were forced to rape and engage in other degrading sexual acts with one another. Many Bosnian Muslim women who were unlawfully detained were raped," Orie said.

The judge recounted the story of a mother who ventured into the streets during the deadly siege of Sarajevo with her son as Serb snipers and artillery targeted the Bosnian capital. She was shot. The bullet passed through her abdomen and struck her 7-year-old son's head, killing him.

In Srebrenica, the war reached its bloody climax as Bosnian Serb forces overran what was supposed to be a U.N.-protected safe haven. After busing away women and children, Serb forces systematically murdered some 8,000 Muslim males.

"Many of these men and boys were cursed, insulted, threatened, forced to sing Serb songs and beaten while awaiting their execution," Orie said. Mladic looked relaxed as the hearing started, greeting lawyers, crossing himself and giving a thumbs-up to photographers in court. But midway through the hearing Mladic's lawyer, Dragan Ivetic, asked for a delay because the general was suffering from high blood pressure. The judge refused, Mladic started yelling and was tossed out of court.

When he started speaking, "it was not about his health but much more I think trying to insult the judges," Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz said. The conflict in the former Yugoslavia erupted after the country's breakup in the early 1990s, with the worst crimes taking place in Bosnia. More than 100,000 people died and millions lost their homes before a peace agreement was signed in 1995. Mladic went into hiding for around 10 years before his arrest in Serbia in May 2011.

Mladic's political master during the war, former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic, was also convicted last year for genocide and sentenced to 40 years. He has appealed the ruling. The man widely blamed for fomenting wars across the Balkans, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, died in his U.N. cell in 2006 before tribunal judges could reach verdicts in his trial.

The ethnic tensions that Milosevic stoked from Belgrade simmer to this day. Top Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik said the tribunal only underscored its anti-Serb bias by convicting Mladic. Dodik said the court was established with the "single purpose" of demonizing Serbs.

"This opinion is shared by all the Serbs," Dodik said, describing Mladic as "a hero and a patriot." Serbian President Alksandar Vucic, a former ultranationalist who supported Mladic's war campaigns but now casts himself as a pro-EU reformer, agreed that the court has been biased against Serbs but added that "we should not justify the crimes committed" by the Serbs.

"We are ready to accept our responsibility" for war crimes "while the others are not," he said. For a former prisoner of Serb-run camps in northwestern Bosnia who was in The Hague, the verdict was sweet relief.

Fikret Alic became a symbol of the horrors in Bosnia after his skeletal frame was photographed by Time magazine behind barbed wire in 1992 in a Bosnian Serb camp. "Justice has won," he said. "And the war criminal has been convicted."

Associated Press writers Jovana Gec and Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Sabina Niksic and Amer Cohadzic in Sarajevo, Eldar Emric in Srebrenica and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

Bosnia marks 20 years since Princess Diana's visit

August 10, 2017

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Bosnia is marking the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana's visit, her last overseas tour before she died in a car crash in Paris. Her crusade against land mines led to her three-day visit to Bosnia from Aug. 9, 1997, during which she met victims who sustained injuries from devices planted during the country's savage civil war in the 1990s.

Three weeks after her visit, which coincided with news of her romance with millionaire Dodi al Fayed, the pair died in a car crash in Paris when their driver lost control of his car as they were pursued by photographers.

British Ambassador Edward Ferguson said Thursday during a memorial conference in Sarajevo that Diana would be saddened by the fact that mines still kill people in Bosnia. "What I think 20 years ago Princess Diana did is that she shone a light on this problem with mines, and she really brought it into public attention in an enormous way, in a way, perhaps, that only she could have done," Ferguson said.

"By walking through a mine field in Angola, by visiting Bosnia-Hercegovina just a few days before she sadly died. She really got the public attention and therefore political attention as well." He said undetected land mines still represent a danger in Bosnia despite some recent progress. A half-million people, or about 15 percent of the population, live with this fear of mines, Ferguson added.

The princess' trip to Bosnia was organized by The Land Mines Survivors' Network, a group founded in 1995 by two American victims of land mines, Ken Rutherford and Jerry White. As part of the visit, Diana made a surprise visit to the Suljkanovic family in their modest home in the small village of Dobrnja near Tuzla.

Several weeks earlier, the father of the family, Muhamed Suljkanovic, had lost both his feet after stepping on a land mine in the forest outside his house, a remnant of Bosnia's three-year war. Diana took him some cake on Aug. 9, his birthday, his wife Suada remembered.

"Diana and her friend Ken (Rutherford), the American, they brought the birthday cake, and they sang happy birthday to him, and we were in shock. How did they know?" But the Suljkanovic family's joy turned to shock and disbelief when, just a few weeks after Diana's visit, they heard on the radio that the princess had died.

"What? I said to myself. How? Where? I could not believe it. Immediately after that I named my newborn daughter Diana, after the princess. They say we have to somehow remember good people, and we remember her like that," Muhamed Suljkanovic said.

During her visit, Princess Diana promised financial support for Muhamed for a new prosthesis. Just a couple of months after she died, the family say they received a donation from the royal family, the exact amount promised by Diana.

Another land mine victim, Malic Bradaric, was only 13 in 1996 when he stepped on one while playing in his village of Klokotnica. The incident left him without most of his right leg. When Diana came to visit, he said this week that he expected a royal in a shiny dress wearing a crown. Instead, she arrived on his doorstep wearing jeans and a white shirt.

Bradaric and his friends, who had a chance to meet Diana, said she was "a light at the end of the tunnel" for them. He now remembers the shock when he heard that the princess was killed. "That light that we saw at the end of the tunnel just turned off," Bradaric said.

Associated Press writer Dusan Stojanovic from Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.

Bosnians dive into fast-flowing river in 451-year tradition

August 01, 2017

MOSTAR, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Thousands of people converged on the southern Bosnian city of Mostar over the weekend for an annual diving competition from a historic bridge that has drawn crowds for more than four centuries.

Over 10,000 spectators cheered and let off smoke bombs as they watched 41 daring men take the plunge from the Old Bridge during Mostar's 451st annual diving competition. The competitors dove from a bridge 27 meters (89 feet) high into the cold, fast-flowing Neretva River below in front of a panel of judges studying the quality of the dive.

The fall from the top of the bridge to the 4.5-meter (15-foot) deep river underneath lasts nearly three seconds, with divers picking up a speed of around 80 kph (50 mph). At the end of a beautiful Sunday afternoon of diving, 38-year-old Mostar native Lorens Listo claimed his 11th competition victory.

"Every time I compete it is more difficult and every victory is thus sweeter," Listo said. Diving or jumping from the bridge, originally built by the Ottomans in 1566, has been a rite of passage for generations of Mostar youngsters.

The Old Bridge, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was destroyed during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, but was painstakingly rebuilt after the conflict. "I compete elsewhere as well, but I love diving from the Old Bridge more than anything else," Listo said.

The event climaxed with participants jumping from the bridge after nightfall with flares in their outstretched hands.

Bosnia: thousands mark 22 years since Srebrenica massacre

July 11, 2017

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Tens of thousands of people converged on Srebrenica Tuesday for a funeral for dozens of newly identified victims of the 1995 massacre in the Bosnian town. Remains of 71 Muslim Bosniak victims, including seven juvenile boys and a woman, were buried at the memorial cemetery on the 22nd anniversary of the crime. They were laid to rest next to over 6,000 other Srebrenica victims found previously in mass graves. The youngest victim buried this year was 15, the oldest was 72.

Adela Efendic came to Srebrenica to bury the remains of her father, Senaid. "I was 20-day-old baby when he was killed. I have no words to explain how it feels to bury the father you have never met," Efendic said. "You imagine what kind of a person he might have been, but that is all you have."

More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys perished in 10 days of slaughter after Srebrenica was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces on July 11, 1995. It is the only episode of Bosnia's fratricidal 1992-95 war to be defined as genocide by two U.N. courts.

Serbs hastily disposed of the victims' bodies in several large pits, then dug them up again and scattered the remains over the nearly 100 smaller mass graves and hidden burial sites around the town. Every year forensic experts identify newly found remains through DNA analysis before reburial.

Most coffins are lowered into their graves by strangers, because all male members of the victims' families had often been killed. "I was looking for him for 20 years...they found him in a garbage dump last December," Emina Salkic said through tears, hugging the coffin of her brother Munib. He was 16 when he was killed.

Srebrenica was besieged by Serb forces for years before it fell. It was declared a U.N. "safe haven" for civilians in 1993, but a Security Council mission that visited shortly afterward described the town as "an open jail" where a "slow-motion process of genocide" was in effect.

When Serb forces led by Gen. Ratko Mladic broke through two years later, Srebrenica's terrified Muslim Bosniak population rushed to the U.N. compound hoping that Dutch U.N. peacekeepers would protect them. But the outgunned peacekeepers watched helplessly as Mladic's troops separated out men and boys for execution and sent the women and girls to Bosnian government-held territory.

An appeals court in The Hague ruled this month that the Dutch government was partially liable in the deaths of more than 300 people who were turned away from the compound. Mladic is now on trial before a U.N. war crimes tribunal, but many Bosnian Serbs, including political leaders, continue to deny that the slaughter constituted genocide.

"We are again calling on Serbs and their political and intellectual elites to find courage to face the truth and stop denying genocide," Bakir Izetbegovic, Bosniak member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, said in his address to the mourners.

Lars-Gunnar Wigemark, the head of the EU delegation to Bosnia, said that remembering what happened in Srebrenica was "the common duty of us as Europeans," especially as we live "in a world where facts and truth are being manipulated."

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the international community, "and in particular the United Nations," have accepted their share of responsibility, and that all parties must acknowledge "that these crimes occurred and our roles in allowing them to occur."

"The difficult task of building trust to allow for full reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina lies with the people of the country's various communities," Guterres said in a statement. "To build a better and common future, the tragedies of the past must be recognized by those communities."

Amel Emric in Srebrenica and Edie Lederer in New York contributed

College in Bosnia offers scholarships to people banned by Trump

February 3, 2017

A Bosnia-based international school said today it would offer scholarships to refugees and students from seven nations affected by the immigration ban issued last week by US President’s Donald Trump.

United World College (UWC) Mostar, one of 17 UWC schools worldwide that aim to bring together students from conflict zones, opened in 2005 with the goal of healing ethnic divisions after the Bosnian war of the 1990s.

“We offer scholarships to US students, as well as to refugees and students from majority Muslim countries banned by the US Executive order to send a signal for peace,” said Valentina Mindoljevic, head of the UWC Mostar.

Trump’s order bars the admission of people from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen and places an indefinite hold on Syrian refugees.

The school in 2011 extended a scholarship to Kim Han-sol, the grandson of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, after Hong Kong refused him a visa to study there.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170203-college-in-bosnia-offers-scholarships-to-people-banned-by-trump/.