In the summer of 1995 I
drove from the Croatian capital to the Muslim enclave
of Bihac amid isolated fighting in the Serb Krajina. This
is a report from the city which had just been liberated
after four years under siege.
For four years Croatia
quietly smuggled in weapons to take back the Krajina
which Serb militia has overrun in 1991. When the offensive
finally began in 1995 there was rejoicing and a sense
of triumph.
As ever in war, corruption
is endemic. In this report I write how Serbs sold food
and even guns and ammunition to the Muslim civilians they
were besieging to make a fast buck.
At the end of the war
in 1995 much of Bosnia lay in ruins. This piece describes
the scene in a front-line town near the north-eastern
enclave of Bihac as the Muslim army advances against
the Serbs.
This story, written in the
autumn of 1996, is of a Muslim man who was determined
to return to his home-town in eastern Bosnia from where
he was ethnically cleansed in 1992. Despite all the obstacles
put in his way by the international community he made
it, with a little help.
