John Sparrow in Srebrenica
Spring has warmed the hills around Srebrenica, and nurtured faint glimmers of hope. Almost seven years after he lost his son in Europe's worst atrocity since the Second World War – the slaughter here of more than 7,000 Muslims – Jusuf Oric has come home to eastern Bosnia.
From the remains of his house in the destroyed village of Gornji Potocari, the 58-year-old looks out over a mountain valley in which, despite the horrors of the recent past, he sees a future. He has no job, no money, no support, and no tangible prospect of any. Ethnic tension remains, unseen, unspoken but perceptible. Yet when asked how he can survive here, he allows himself a hollow laugh. "Something will happen. It must," he says. "I belong in this valley and I will not leave it again."
He is not alone. Slowly but surely, Muslims who fled or were expelled from the region in the violent break-up of the former Yugoslavia, are returning, some to Srebrenica itself – the ill-fated United Nations safe haven that fell to Bosnian Serb forces in the summer of 1995 – more to nearby villages. How many there are precisely, no one seems to know. The official count is incomplete and estimates refer only to several hundred.
Though the numbers are modest, they are welcome evidence of what is now possible in this sensitive corner of Republika Srpska, the Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the wider context they are a source of encouragement for the 1.5 million displaced people and refugees still waiting to go home in the former Yugoslavia.
Less encouraging is the degree of support the returnees are finding. Warns Dana Petrovic, secretary of the regional coordinating committee of an under-funded Red Cross, "we do whatever we can with the little we have but it is minimal. The reality is that very needy people are being left to their own devices." The challenges are the greater, she says, for the fact that they are returning to a depressed area, one where the economy is a fraction of what it was before the conflict and a large proportion of the ordinary population is itself in trouble.
Scant resources do not negate the significance of Red Cross support for the returnees. Comments Zsolt Dudas, the Federation's regional population movement delegate, "by showing its unequivocal backing for minority return, the local Red Cross provides an element of protection. It is saying it will stand by them, come what may. That counts for something in the former Yugoslavia."
Jusuf Oric needs all the backing he can find. For the past couple of months he has been living rough, in the darkness of what was his ground-floor bathroom, the only room of his home to survive. It has no electricity and he is preoccupied with finding a stove for it. "It would be a start," he says, "and once I have things in order, my wife will join me."
He lives from one day to the next. If he had materials he would start rebuilding, but since he has none he busies himself with cleaning and tidying his plot. He has a hectare of land on which he once raised livestock, supplementing his main income from work in a local factory. His philosophy is simple: Be prepared. Who knows what tomorrow might bring?
Nearby, Vahid Oric, 35 (not related to Jusuf), and his wife Sadika cling to a similar optimism. They returned from Tuzla in March with two of their four children, leaving the others in the care of his mother there, to continue schooling. His family, too, will reunite when conditions are better.
This spring they cleared away the rubble from their ruined home, they dug their land and planted vegetables. The poor meals they scrape together are cooked in a shed, water is carried by bucket from far away, and they sleep at night in a friend's home, one of the few to have survived the destruction. "We will stay," says Vahid firmly. "We will see what is to be our destiny."
Dana Petrovic looks on in despair. "Where are the resources?" she asks. "In 1996 they were unlimited. All the relief in the world was available because the international community realized it had to help the people home. But to return takes time and in many areas the process has only just begun. Today all I can offer is a hygienic parcel. A bit of food comes in from elsewhere. Will that keep people going? They must not be forgotten."
Related links:
Appeal 2002 - Bosnia
Appeal 2002 - Central Europe