Rita Plotnikova in Ivanica
The war took a terrible toll on Ivanica. Every building in this once prosperous town in the south of Bosnia-Herzegovina, including several large warehouses, was destroyed or badly damaged. Today many of them still stand empty and in ruins.
Out of a population of 2,500 that abandoned the town during the war, only 50 families have returned - a community of Muslims, Serbs and Croats wishing to live and rebuild their lives together.
“We have returned here to live and raise our children, not just to end our lives or to restore and sell the former property,” says 35-year-old Dzafer Rizvanovic, one of those who have taken that step.
But rebuilding lives is not an easy task in a post-war country, where administrative and political uncertainties have left hundreds of returnees without adequate living standards, proper rights or much hope.
Ivanica is a good example. It is part of Ravno municipality, but the administrative centre is some 60 km away and - itself badly affected by the war - is in desperate need of assistance. The Republica Srpska, the Bosnian Serb republic to which Ivanica belonged before the war, is a separate administrative entity. And the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, where most of Ivanica’s inhabitants used to work, is in a different state.
People returning to live in Ivanica find themselves neglected and forgotten by all.
Returnees are among the most vulnerable in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the unemployment rate still exceeds 40 per cent and industries destroyed by the war and the break-up of Yugoslavia have been very slow in recovering.
Post-war achievements have not filtered down to the population and poverty is rampant, especially among refugees and displaced people, war invalids and pensioners. The government has not set an official “poverty threshold”, but only 13.2 per cent of the population receives in excess of the international standard of US$ 4 per day. Wages, pensions and disability allowances are paid irregularly, making much of the population dependent on their relatives living abroad.
Dzafer Rizvanovic escaped from Ivanica as the war started in 1992. After seven humiliating years searching for work in the north of the country and then in Germany, he’d had more than enough. When a return became possible, he brought his wife Zlatka and their four children back to their homeland.
Together they managed to repair parts of the house that he built in 1990 but that they found in ruins on their return. Dzafer’s monthly income from occasional jobs in the community does not exceed 100-200 euros per month and barely provides even a modest subsistence for the family of six.
Not long ago the community decided to give an electric saw donated by the UNHCR to Dzafer so that he could start a small business to generate some income for his family and help the community. “I take all sorts of orders,” Dzafer says. “But when the time comes to pay, I cannot bring myself to give the bill to people who I know live in worse conditions than us.”
For Dzafer’s wife, Zlatka, “it is really heartbreaking that we cannot even go to Dubrovnik which is only ten kilometres away, not even for an ice-cream for the children,” she says, explaining that at the border with Croatia she has to prove they have a minimum amount of money - significantly more than they have.
“We are all young here and live with hope,” she says. “We were encouraged to come back, but then all the politicians retreated and we stay forgotten and neglected completely.”
However, Zlatka strongly believes that things will change, that tourism to Dubrovnik will spread further and reach Ivanica, that relations with Croatia will improve and Ivanica will emerge from its current misery. Some day.
It is hard to say how far away this day is in a country where 5.9 per cent of the population were eliminated and 70 per cent of homes were damaged or destroyed during the war, according to the Public Health Institute of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In June 2003, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that half of the total of two million people who were forced from their homes during the war had now gone back, although thousands still remain displaced within the country. For those who have returned, the process of restoring normality is not easy.
“We do not feel the presence of any authority here,” says Petar Stepanovic, Chairman of the local Association of Returnees, the only administrative body in Ivanica.
“Returnees are not popular these days,” he continues. “We see the international community rapidly scaling back its activities and the local authorities remain deaf to our appeals. We still have no police, no ambulance, no public transport, no streetlights at night, no school for our children and no jobs.”
This summer, the Red Cross responded to the urgent appeal from Ivanica and other villages affected by an unprecedented drought that dried up all rainwater collectors, wiped out crops and caused numerous fires in neighbouring forests.
There are no pipelines in Ivanica and before the war water was delivered by trucks. The presence of the NATO Stabilization force in Ivanica after the war helped to solve the water problem.
But the troops left town last spring, leaving local people helpless. Unable to pay 40 euros per family for water to be delivered by truck from Trebinje, just 20 km away, the community appealed to the Red Cross for help.
“We managed to find funds for several trucks of water that were delivered here and to other villages in a similar plight,” says Slobodanka Curic, the International Federation's sub-regional disaster management co-ordinator. “This water will be sufficient for another 20-30 days. Since the weather forecasts do not give much hope, we are seeking more funds for another delivery of water to these communities before the autumn rains come.”
“In most cases the local social infrastructures are still too weak to give any substantial support to those returning,” says Ivona Matic-Bulic, Population Movement Coordinator for the Red Cross Society of Bosnia and Herzegovina. “We in the Red Cross are trying to provide assistance to the most vulnerable in most isolated or forgotten return areas.”
In 2003, following the international Red Cross emergency appeal, the Red Cross of Bosnia and Herzegovina set up four mobile teams in the selected priority regions. Having delivered food and hygiene parcels to 18,000 families in 2003, the teams continue to visit six to eight families a day assisting with minor household repairs. The Red Cross Societies in Sweden, Iceland, Japan, Great Britain, Finland and Monaco provided funds for these activities.
“A network of trained volunteers is working in the return areas,” says Matic-Bulic.
“In their respective communities they identify new returnees, provide them with necessary information and find out their capacities and needs so that our mobile teams can help them further if necessary,” she adds.
Restoring the fabric of society and resolving political differences will take much longer than rebuilding houses and bridges. By providing psycho-social support and helping the most vulnerable without discrimination, the Red Cross teams are helping to promote the process of reconciliation.
It is obvious that international community has done a lot to integrate concerns over human rights and protection into the return process, as well as encouraging sustainability of long-term projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina. But Ivanica shows that the handover of responsibilities to the local authorities has not always taken account of the needs of the returnees.
Related links:
Bosnia: appeals, updates and reports
News story: Uncertainty awaits Bosnian returnees
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