God Has Not Forgotten Sarajevo

Sarajevo in 1993

This is one of those stories that I repeatedly want people to remember, because as the years are advancing we can easily lose sight of the true heroes of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina 25 years ago. This is partially so because the true heroes never brag about their acts of heroism. Of all of them who made a true difference in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the years of the sinister 1992 – 1995 war, we need to remember first ADRA – Adventist Development and Relief Agency and their 120 volunteers in Sarajevo, and many across Bosnia-Herzegovina, the region, and beyond.

During the 1,425 days of the Sarajevo siege 11,541 people were killed, of whom 1,500 were children. Early in 1993 I had the privilege of spending one month in Sarajevo as a guest of ADRA Sarajevo, and taste what it looked like living in an “open-air concentration camp” barraged every day from the surrounding hills and mountains with all kinds of mortars, missiles and sniper fire, in what was the longest siege of the 20^th century. If I ever experienced what the real war looked like, this was in Sarajevo in 1993. 

ADRA Sarajevo volunteers

Apart from the relief work of the U.N. agencies, ADRA was by far the most efficient and respected relief presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina thanks to its strict ethnic and religious impartiality. During those war years ADRA Sarajevo, with the help of ADRA International, provided also the only effective postal service that delivered thousands of letters in and out of the besieged city.

I am gladly giving my contribution to the remembrance of the true heroes, of whom many still remain unnamed. This is a fragment of my experiences of one month spent with the ADRA volunteers in Sarajevo in February and March 1993. This article was originally written and released for the first time soon after I left Sarajevo in 1993.

Sarajevo after a morning mortar attack

A sudden burst of sunshine heralds the arrival of a new day. “Who would say this is war?!”, says Detlef Riemarzik, a photo journalist from Germany. The two of us are sharing a room in the home of Radomir and Mira Nikolic. Radomir is an Adventist pastor and the ADRA Director in Sarajevo.

Through the window of our room our eyes scan the authentic mixture of European and Middle Eastern buildings and roofs around us. The last patches of snow are visibly melting, revealing the ugly nakedness of the wounded city. The surrounding hills gripping Sarajevo in a deadly embrace appear cunningly still.

It is 8 o’clock in the morning, March 1993 — only a few days ahead of Easter. The rooms and corridors of ADRA’s offices in Sarajevo resemble a beehive. The ADRA Coordinating Team is meeting to discuss the priorities of the day. Today 120 volunteers will be busy distributing humanitarian packages, preparing an additional warehouse for the arrival of 30,000 food packages from a number of European countries, and distributing hundreds of letters that have arrived into the city with the latest convoy. In the first year of the Sarajevo siege ADRA provided the city’s only efficient postal service, delivering close to 50,000 letters to its citizens cut off from the rest of the world.

ADRA Pharmacy, the only operational pharmacy in Sarajevo in 1993

Detlef checks his cameras, lenses, film. Stepping out of the sheltered ADRA residence into the open is a hazardous adventure. A group of people at the street gate asks us for a handful of any kind of food. “Just a potato or two, please,” asks one of them. Then, suddenly a sharp, metallic, thunder-like sound splits the air. Mortars — one, two, three hit the nearby houses. Heavy machine guns rattle. Sniper bullets shriek through the air. Metal fences and gates ring. Heavy dust rains upon the gardens, houses, streets. Detlef and I hide behind a wall. There, together with another fifty people, we wait for another round of deadly blasts to pass.

An hour later we find ourselves visiting Kosevo Hospital — overcrowded with the wounded and dying. Mufita Lazovic, a medical doctor, takes us around. People who have been disabled for life are telling us their stories. Hasan and Hana Camdzic, husband and wife, were wounded by an air missile while sleeping in their bedroom. Hasan has lost both, and Hana one of her legs. A tank missile has permanently disabled Elizabeta Krasni. Wounded Munira Milanovic describes with the tears in her eyes how she survived the blast that instantly killed her husband.

The war children of Sarajevo. Where are they today?

“Children suffer the most,” explains the doctor while escorting us out of the hospital. “Not long ago we had to amputate both legs from a 6-year-old boy. After the surgery he begged his parents to give him his legs back.”

Only a few minutes’ walk from the hospital spreads Bare Cemetery with no more room to receive the daily increase in the number of the dead. Kosevo Football Stadium was turned into its extension. Respectfully we stoop down and observe the thousands of orderly aligned graves. Detlef reluctantly decides that he must take a few pictures — for the record. Next to one grave, three men support a collapsing woman. She is sobbing, screaming, cursing. There lies the dead body of her 19-year-old daughter, buried only a few days earlier.

They were waiting patiently every day

A couple of hours later we arrive at the main ADRA warehouse in the city. Hundreds of people slide patiently toward the entrance that leads to four huge storage rooms packed with thousands of recently received humanitarian parcels. It seems as if the endless hours of queuing do not bother people doomed to waiting.

Through the eyes of his cameras, Detlef captures every moment worth remembering: an elderly woman with shaky hands placing her food parcel into something that used to be a stroller for babies; two young men loading their received goods onto their bicycles; a man totally immersed into reading the only paper published daily in Sarajevo; two women in tears embracing each other; a cat with a broken tail gliding through a jungle of human legs; and a man in a long queue slowly drifting forward and shouting “Thank you ADRA!”

In Sarajevo every moment, every movement and every picture tells another story.

Rade and Mira Nikolic, the engines of ROM in Sarajevo

We then join Senad Vranic, one of the 50 ADRA postmen in Sarajevo. Not long ago one of their postmen was killed on duty while delivering letters to the homes of people not far from where we are. Although a volunteer, like any professional postman, Senad brings the letters right to the doorsteps of involuntarily separated mothers, fathers, children, grandparents and friends.

“There are hazardous days, too! Sudden blasts, mortars, bombs, snipers! Not a safe place to be! Still, I go because I know how much hope these letters bring to people separated from those they love the most,” explains Senad as we reach the gates of a small oriental-looking house occupied by a young couple. As we enter their home we hear an exciting welcome: “Our ADRA, our friends have come to us!”

Seven funerals in one day

It is getting dark and we are back at the ADRA offices in Tepebasina 7. Hedviga Jirota, a cheerful 82-year-old lady of whom none would ever guess her age, has prepared a delicious supper composed of various humanitarian ingredients: blended cheese from Czechoslovakia; macaroni from Italy; rice and tinned corned beef from England; hot powder milk, enriched with white coffee powder from Germany. She invites Radomir, Mira, Detlef, me and a few others to take our places around the table. Could we ever expect a more beautiful feast in the undernourished Sarajevo?

ADRA postal distribution service

“It is not easy. Many eyes are upon us. They think that ADRA can do what others can’t,” reflects pastor Nikolic at the dinner table. “In fact, we could do more if we would only have more trucks, diesel for trucks, better international support,” he adds.

By now it is almost midnight. Detlef and I are staring again through the window of our room. The engines of the U.N. planes shake the dark sky above the city. Tonight they are bound for eastern Bosnia where they will parachute several tones of food into the night. A sudden burst of machine guns echoes through the streets somewhere close by. We hear angry shouts, screams and more firing. A couple of distant explosions break in the night. And then everything is quiet again.

The moonlit houses look strange with all the lights out. The city, which appears to have fallen into a deep sleep, with only a few distant and dimmed lights creeping through the blankets stretched over the darkened windows, remind me of the romanticized pictures of Bethlehem the night when Jesus was born.

I wonder if in 1993, in more than a metaphorical way, Jesus walks the streets of an imprisoned and wounded Sarajevo? I cannot help but love those 120 dedicated volunteers of ADRA, Muslims and Christians together, who against all odds feed the hungry, distribute humanitarian aid, deliver the letters and give medicines to the sick. No doubt they are fulfilling Jesus’ commission: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Through their dedicated service and sacrifices God is saying to the whole world that He has not forgotten Sarajevo.

Audio: The sound of machine gun fire in Sarajevo in March 1993.

Having spent four weeks in Sarajevo I left the city with this ADRA convoy

Photos, audio and story: Tihomir Kukolja

For more photos visit here.

Audio: Interview recorded in Sarajevo in 1993 with the ADRA Sarajevo volunteer-coordinator Edita Dilber and a few other volunteers who volunteered  in the ADRA postal service at the time.