wfn.org | Five years after fleeing, Bosnian Muslims return to homes

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Nov. 3, 1998        Contact: Linda Bloom*(212)870-3803*New York
{644}

NOTE:  This story is a sidebar to UMNS #644. The names of the two women
mentioned in the story, Ahmic Senada and Ahmic Zaifa, are correct.

By Franklin Fisher*

AHMICI, Bosnia (UMNS) -- For Ahmic Senada, a stout, cheerful Bosnian
woman of 39 with green eyes and blond hair, there couldn't have been a
brighter Saturday for moving a truckload of furniture back to the house
she'd fled five years ago.

The rolling pastures and orange roofs this mid-October day were steeped
in late afternoon stillness, and the sun overlaid the green slopes with
a soft, golden hue. Now and then, a dark, long-tailed bird streaked low
across a field.

But for all the pastoral charm of that Balkan vista, there were other
houses, roofless, gaping reminders of the morning five years ago when
ethnic war broke upon the village of Ahmici. 

Infants were killed with their mothers. 

Houses were blasted and burned. 

And death struck Senada's own family.

On April 16, 1993, Croat troops began shelling Ahmici, then went from
house to house, killing people and livestock, destroying homes and
barns. Some 110 people were believed killed, including women, children,
and babies. Every Muslim house was burned.

Now, under the terms of the 1995 Dayton peace accords, Senada, a Muslim,
was getting back the village that had been her lifelong home. Through a
United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) program to rebuild
war-damaged houses, she was receiving back not only the house that had
been wrecked by explosions and fire, but also a start at a new life in
what she hopes will remain a Bosnia without war.

The housing reconstruction program is only one of many humanitarian
projects under way through UMCOR. Since 1993, the agency has been active
throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina in helping ease the hardships of war. 

Senada and seven others - her daughter, parents and brother's family --
were asleep in the house that morning five years ago. She was pulled
from the depths of sleep by noise: shells bursting, gunfire, people
screaming. The house was under fire.

Wanting to find the safest escape route, her father stole from the house
into the cold rain and fog, Senada recalled. Meanwhile, the rest of her
family started up the hill behind their house.

As they rushed away, Senada saw her brother and asked where their father
was. "He's dead," came the reply. He had been shot as he passed in front
of their garage.

At the top of the hill, they plunged into a wood. From there, they and a
swarm of other villagers scrambled into a nearby village and, in many
cases, to other locales that would become long-term places of refuge.

Five years later, on this day of return, Senada and her daughter are
rejoining her brother's family, which moved into the house earlier.

Not far downhill from Senada's home lives a 66-year-old Muslim woman who
also survived the Croat attack.

Ahmic Zaifa was asleep in her home when, like the others, she was roused
by the sound of explosions and gunfire.

Zaifa looked out the window and saw houses on fire. People were
screaming. Even the animals seemed to be lowing in fear. She grabbed
whatever clothes were at hand and rushed out into the darkness.
Terrified villagers were rushing past. She fell in with them and slipped
through the woods to safety. 

Earlier this year, she and her husband returned and have been living for
the time being in a concrete shed that once sheltered farm animals. They
await the UMCOR-sponsored reconstruction of their home just yards away.

Their son Senbad was killed serving with the Bosnian army on Sept. 15,
1993. Only two days later, Senbad's widow gave birth to a son. For
Zaifa, the memory of her son aches in her each day, as does the loss of
those killed in the attack. Everyone, she said, was like family.

As she spoke, her husband was up the hill, helping others haul Senada's
furniture off the yellow truck and into the house.

The house awaited some finishing touches, including electricity. But
that hardly dampened Senada's excitement or that of her relatives.

 "Here," she said, "My heart is full."

# # #

*Fisher is a writer for the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.

United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
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