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''…Mehmed was born in the vicinity of Bratunac, but he lived in Belgrade, where he got married.

''We set out from our village for Belgrade in Luka's car, but we were arrested as we were leaving town. They took us to the police station, and after checking our identification cards, they separated us. I was kept for questioning, but, as Luka was a Serb, he was discharged. He did not want to leave me and was constantly lingering around those people, telling them: ''Release this man. He lives in Belgrade, he is only going to see his family.'' Mehmed was questioned for twelve hours. When he was released, one of the men grabbed Luka by the chest, saying: ‘‘we shall have a special conversation with you'', and then he hit him against the wall.

''I think it would be a better idea to spend the night here, because at night they could kill us very easily. We'll get up early next morning and go across the Drina River. It’s too dangerous here'', continued Luka.

They, themselves, were aware of the fact that every morning the bodies of dead people who had been ''interviewed'' the day before were being found along the banks of the Drina.

In the morning, Luka arranged to have Mehmed transported across the Drina River; Mehmed then went on to Belgrade, while Luka returned to Bratunac to try to free yet another person.

... About five o'clock in the morning we were driven out of the stadium. At the very exit of the stadium there were men from Bratunac and ''Arkan’s3 men, who were separating people. Old people, women and children had to go to the right, towards the buses and lorries, and those who were considered able to fight were sent to the left hand side.

Men were lined up along the wall of the stadium. Some tried to sneak into the women’s group with the children, but were unsuccessful. Children were grabbed from their fathers and thrown into the group with the mothers, while men were pushed to the right hand side.

Children were taken in buses and lorries, while we men were lined up in a column and taken to the gym of the ''Vuk Karadzic'' elementary school.

From the hallway I could see the locker rooms and bathrooms, which were, full of dead bodies from which there spread a horrible smell.

On the left half of the gym floor there were about thirty-five people lying with their faces to the ground. I thought they were dead, too, when suddenly the guards shouted at them and made them rise. Some I barely recognized, their faces were so disfigured.

They ordered us to empty the contents of our pockets, to take off our wedding rings, necklaces, all jewels, as well as our watches, cigarette lighters, and cigarettes. Everything that had not been taken at the stadium had to be left on the pile, which gradually grew higher and higher. Then there was a roll call. A group of five people was selected and then killed outside. Luka was brought into the gym the same evening.

“This is what happens to anyone who helps the Moslems”, they said angrily, and fired a pistol bullet into his head.

We who had to watch all that, had to wash away the blood and brains spilled on the parquet floor, and to take out the dead bodies and load them onto the lorries, which took them God knows where.

Nine people got suffocated in the gym that night; among them was a friend of mine, a good sportsman, who was only 28 years old.

2. “IF YOUR BALIJA4 WON'T DO IT, I WILL”

…''Certain Serbians were called and a few people took them out of the gym in Bratunac. One of the men from ''Vihor'' Company saved several people, while we thought he was taking them to be shot…''

Soon one of the neighbours called my name. I thought: ''It’s my turn, finally, to be killed''. Those who left the gym either were killed, or were beaten up and were returned to the gym with terrible bruises. Their faces were covered with blood and they had socks stuck in their mouths.

There were four soldiers on each side of the corridor. I closed the door and leaned against it. All of them had iron bars, which they had ripped of from school desks. While I was thinking about how they were going to kill me with those iron bars, Pera opened the door and aiming his rifle at me, he said: '' No, no, not him. Leave him to me!''

Nothing was clear to me. I thought: ''A friend is going to kill me. Perhaps that’s my destiny''.

He brought me to the right hand side of his car and pushed me onto the front seat. “Sivi” (a nickname), whom I also knew, was sitting at the wheel. He put his rifle between himself and me. I was of two minds, and I didn’t know what to do. He closed the door and started the engine of the car, but Pera stayed outside and banged on the car window with his rifle:

“I don't know. It's dangerous everywhere. Can you take me out of Bratunac? “

“It's impossible now. Bratunac is full of ''man hunters’’. ''Where shall we go? “

“Take me to the shop where I used to work,” I said, wondering whether I should find Braca there.

While I was getting out of the car, Sivi said: “I did what I could. Good luck!”

Braca took me into his car: “Sead, where shall I take you now? If I take you to my house they will kill you and me.”

“Take me to the river. I will swim across the Drina River and will get to Serbia. “

“Look, buddy, you can’t even get to the Drina. There are a lot of soldiers there.”

In front of the mosque there had formed a long convoy of prominent Moslems from Bratunac. They had received passes with Serbian names from the Bratunac town office, so they could get into Serbia. Later, some went to Tuzla and others to Macedonia.

Half way into town we met Ibro, a Moslem, who was driving his wife and his mother-in-law. Braca flashed his headlights at him, and when Ibro stopped his car he asked him:

“I don't dare, I can’t” – he answered and his voice was trembling. He started up his car and drove off.

When we got close to the bridge, we saw a policeman who knew us. Through the open car window, he asked Braca:

“I'll let you through, but you won't get by the control office on the Serbian side.”

“Go, but I haven't seen a thing!” - concluded the policeman, turning away, as he told his colleague to move a car, which was parked in the middle of the bridge.

As soon as we left the bridge the Serbian police stopped us. I couldn't tell who was more frightened when we were standing outside the car, while they were searching us. Braca was relieved when he heard the familiar voice of a friendly policeman.

''Release this man. I know him very well. He has been to Ljubovija a dozen times today.''

“Where am I gonna take them? Don’t you see what the situation is? I can only kill them--not give them a lift!” he answered resolutely.

3. THIS IS THE BALKANS

At the end of July 1993, my neighbours and Moslem colleagues took me for a supposedly “informational” interview. I took a blanket along just in case, which actually saved me, because they took me to the Sports Hall ''Musala'' which was used as a prison--just because I was a Croat!….

In prison I found my best man, Bora Koprivica, a Serb, who had been imprisoned for many months. He was so beaten up that he could hardly walk, so three of us would help him go to the toilet. We did not see any bread for five days at a time, and as for food we got some boiled rice; we had to sleep on the bare concrete floor and some were so exhausted that they couldn’t walk. Many succumbed to physical abuse and hunger. A 'normal person could not even imagine such brutality. When the members of the International Red Cross Organization (IRCO) came to inspect the living conditions in our camp, we were hidden by the camp authorities—that’s why even today I have no certificate that I had been imprisoned in the camp, although I have five hundred witnesses who were there with me. Those people who were treated the worst-- who were burned with hot steel rods--were hidden, too, in order to conceal any traces of the crimes.

Yet there were brave people, like Mr. Dragutin Peric, who told the members of IRCO the names of living but hidden people. Who knows whether they would have survived, if their names had not been written down in the register? Dragutin paid dearly for his bravery. He was severely beaten soon after the (IRCO) left. If all people were evil, even the sun would refuse to shine.

4. SLEEP IN PEACE

…Four cetniks6 who wore black fur hats and had cockades 7 on their hats, came into our flat one night in the beginning of October, 1992. It was forbidden to lock the door, and even if we did lock it, they would break into the flat simply by kicking it in with their boots. I lived alone with my mother whereas my brother was performing his ''radna obaveza'' (work obligation or “forced labor»)8. They introduced themselves as soldiers of ''Kninska krajina''9, who came to Grbavica to help the Serbian army. The last soldier who came in locked the door. I did not know the reason for their coming, but they searched the whole flat without saying anything. As they did not find any money or jewels or weapons, one of them attacked me with a knife, while the other one told him:

- Don’t kill him with the knife. Let's take them to the top of the building and then throw them down from above. That’s how Alija's soldiers deal with the (''beli orlovi'') white eagles"10, when they catch them somewhere. -

All the neighbours heard the noise and uproar, but nobody dared come out and protect us. Milan, our neighbour, was brave enough. He put a cardboard box on his head, so that none of the neighbours could recognize him, and ran straight to the police station:

He did not say “my neighbours, the Moslems”, but simply “my neighbours”.

We were saved by a matter of seconds. They could not make up their minds, whether to kill us with a knife or throw us from the fifteenth floor. They had just about decided to kill us, when, luckily, the police arrived. They pounded on the door.

That we were able to leave Grbavica alive we owe to our friend, who helped a lot of people in this war. When he heard what had happened he said:

- Regardless of the fact that I am on the Serbian side in some things, I would never permit anybody to abuse or kill my neighbours, friends, and fellow citizens for the sake of some “ideals”..

5. THEY ARE STILL ONLY CHILDREN

'' ….Marko was a young, talented athlete, a runner who was the great hope not only of his coach, but also of his club. Like many other young men he, too, wanted to do something for his town when the siege began. A lot of lonely and ill elderly people lived at ''Marija Dvor''11, to whom those young people brought food.

Four days after Marko had celebrated his fifteenth birthday, on August 7, 1992, just after noon, as he was returning home with his friends Tarik and Muamer from their shift at “Marija Dvor”', they were approaching the building where they were living, when first one shell exploded, and then another two.

His friends got minor injuries, but some shrapnel entered Marko' s right femur (thigh bone), causing an open fracture…

Three days later the doctors were sure that the thighbone had been saved. Marko could wriggle the toes in his right foot. Doctors Fazlagic and Nakas had performed a miracle; they had connected all the nerves, but there was a great problem with the thigh muscle, which meant that he would have to give up running. The doctors informed Marko and the coach of the consequences of that severe injury.

Marko did not seem upset by this, and he was in contact with his teammates and Mirsad Bojic, the coach. On June 9, 1993 the coach wanted to help Marko in a truly humanitarian way; so he wrote Marko's name on the list of candidates who were supposed to go to the Mediterranean Games in Montpellier. The coach was hoping that since the route from Sarajevo to Montpellier led through Dubrovnik, where Marko’s grandparents lived, he could leave the team there. His grandparents would send him to Izmir, Turkey for medical rehabilitation, and afterwards they would provide good conditions for his recovery in Dubrovnik.

…We ran happily along the taxiway (???), and from the Sokolovic block of flats we went via Igman Mountain in a lorry, and there we got into a van and came to Celebice. Then two men stopped us. One of the men had a baby in his hands and he begged us to take them to a hospital:

- Take us to the hospital in Jablanica. You are our only hope and salvation. The baby is sick. -

We let them get into the van, but suddenly a B&H Army patrol appeared and ordered them to leave the van, while scolding us:

While they were checking our passports, one of the soldiers cocked his rifle and pointed it at Marko.

- They are only children. You will have to kill me first, before you kill Marko. -

6. A FLASH OF LIGHT THAT STILL SHINES TODAY

The horrible conflict in this town between the Croats and the Moslems started for me on June 30, 1993, although, objectively speaking, it had already started one and a half months earlier. On that day, in the west side of town, all the Moslem population from the ages of 16 to 65 were transported into a camp. Due to my first name and surname, which could not be identified as belonging to any confession, as well my place of birth, I was not included in this ''round-up''. I stayed in my flat, but I did not know whether to be happy or not. That was the most horrible night in my life. Screaming and moaning could be heard all night throughout the neighborhood, as children and wives were left without their fathers, sons, and husbands. I don’t know how I managed to get through the night. When I woke up in the morning, I was thinking about going out into the street and telling them to take me to the camp, too—although, on second thought, as with any other normal person, I did not feel eager to experience such a horror.

I left my house in the morning, hoping that I could reach the hospital; I knew I could not stay hidden in my flat, waiting for another inspection. I thought that my doctor's white coat, which I was wearing, would be a kind of a protection. In fact, I was just hoping this to be true. At such moments, a man sometimes clings to irrational details: for me, it was my doctor's white coat. But as soon as I went outside my building, I came upon a painful sight - the members of the Croat military forces surrounded me.

Many of them were my next-door neighbours, young men whom I had met every day. I stood in my tracks, numbly waiting to be arrested by one of them. Nothing happened. It seemed like a whole eternity, before I saw a neighbour who had just put his car key into his car door. He noticed me and took the key out as though he were coming over to me; but then he turned around and started unlocking the car door again. I stood speechless, watching him, without giving him any sign that I expected help from him. He himself made a decision; he approached me and said:

- Do you know what you are doing? You have daughters. You may have some problems. Think carefully! - I warned him in a low voice.

-I’m doing this for the sake of my daughters. My children and yours grew up together. If I don’t help you now, I won’t be able to look into their eyes as long as I live. -

For me that offer of a ride was a flash of light, stronger than the flash of any artillery shell - it still shines today.

7. DON'T GIVE ME AWAY, MUM, PLEASE

Until the war started, I used to live with my husband Esad, our son Edin and our daughter Azra in a place called Sase, near Visegrad.

One May morning in 1992, when the war started, I saw through my window a lot of people in uniforms in my yard. When I went out of the house the soldiers cursed me, one swung his rifle at me, hitting me with the butt and knocking me to the ground. When he got tired of beating me he left the yard, while I, almost beaten to death, managed to drag myself back into the house. I realized that a great misfortune had come upon us, so I told Esad:

- You run with our son into the woods, and our daughter and I will remain here. -

- You must. The soldiers from Uzice corps are catching men and taking them away. -

At two o'clock in the morning I managed to persuade them to leave the house. I stayed with Azra who was only fourteen. I knew I had to hide her somewhere. Our potato pit seemed to be the best hideout.

Lukic came the following morning with four other men, looking for my daughter. Lukic hit me first. They hit me with the butts of their rifles, and when I fell to the ground, they started kicking me with their feet, stomping me and cursing me. I suddenly lost consciousness. When I came to, I was in the woods, covered with blood. I didn’t know what had happened. I tried to crawl back home, but I couldn’t, because I was aching all over. Suddenly, Stanko, our Serbian neighbour, who was also hiding, ran over to me. He did not want to participate in that evil, which I why he hid. I could hardly speak because my lower jaw had been broken.

-Lukic and three other men raped you. Please, forgive me, I watched all that from behind a bush, but I couldn’t help you. If I had appeared, they would have killed me. -

He helped me half of the way home, but he could not go any farther, because he was afraid of being seen by somebody. Then he ran back into the woods.

Lukic was looking for Stanko, too, as a traitor. Lukic did not make any difference among people, and he would rough up the Serbs who did not join him.

Lukic came to my house again the next day. He beat me again, cursing me. I was groaning after each blow. They cut off my hair to the skin and cut a cross into the top of my head with a knife.

They were beating and abusing me for the next five days. Then I managed to get to my sister-in-law's house where I saw what they had done down by the banks of the Drina River; they were slaughtering people, gouging out their eyes, and cutting off women's fingers when they couldn’t take off their golden wedding rings. One of the soldiers recognized me and said:

When we came to Knezina, a militiaman told us that we had to stop and wait for the ''Vojvoda'' (Captain). He was a big, tall man with a long beard, wearing a uniform with a cartridge belt around his belly, and a ''sajkaca'' (a special Yugoslav military cap), with the chetnik cockade on it, which was shining in the sun.

-It’s easy for you to remove them now, when I bring them to you. You go and catch them in the woods, if you want to, but you aren’t going to take any of them from my bus. –

He jumped into the bus, cocked his rifle and pointed it at the ''Vojvoda''. Sveta and the militiaman also cocked their rifles.

- Watch out! You will have to come back this way - the ''Vojvoda'' threatened angrily.

- I will!! Then we'll face each other - said the man from Uzice, while Mladja drove off.

The next convoy for Knezina was stopped. They took fifty-six people off and killed them. They killed sixteen- year-old boys. They even killed my brother-in-law who was thirty-five.

When he returned to Visegrad, Lukic killed Mladja and his three brothers because they were protecting and saving a lot of Moslems. They were members of the famous and rich Pecikoza family who owned saw mills.

8. HANG ME, LET HIM GO

I remained at Ilidza when it became Serbian territory, because I didn’t think that what happened could happen. Many Moslems were badly treated and some even killed. My neighbours, the Serbs, or better to say the Bosnians, saved me. It was those Serbs who came from Serbia who did evil.

Six bearded men, ''cetniks'' with the symbols of the ''beli orlovi'' (white eagles) came into my house. As soon as they entered the door, they started to abuse my wife, our two daughters and myself. Soon after, a neighbour, a Serbian woman ran into the flat, too. She said:

I was taken to the gate where they were collecting the Moslems who were sent towards Kula and Pale. There many of them were beaten and slaughtered. Bora, a Serb, red faced, breathless and upset ran towards me and stood in front of me.

9. A STORY ABOUT ONE MAN AND ONE GRAFITTI

Although I was born in Mostar, when I needed help due to wartime circumstances, a very small number of people were ready for that kind of sacrifice. That will be more understandable, if you know that I am a Moslem and that I used to live (in today’s jargon) “in the western part of the city”.

My daughter, after coming of age, was taken in 1993 to a prison, which was not registered as such.

I begged a friend, a Croat, to save her in August of that year. He promised that he would introduce me to a man who would be able to do that. He did not manage to come to the appointment. His brother came instead, and he asked me if I knew where he was.

His brother went to the front line to look for him and found him dead beside a trench. We never found out who killed him. He was a man who had helped a lot of people.

In the fifth month of the clash between the Croats and Moslems, when the fighting was most severe, I saw a neighbour, a Croat, sitting in front of the building and I went out to talk to him a little bit. Some ten meters beyond our entry, Mika, another neighbour, was busy repairing his bicycle. He had taken upon himself the duty of informing the Moslems when danger arose, so he was sitting in front of the house the whole day long, repairing his bike. Suddenly, a car stopped in front of the house and three young men ran out of the car carrying knives in their hands:

It was evident to all of us that they were looking for me. I passed by a Croat neighbour, secretly threw him my flat keys, and hid in his place. I could watch through the curtains as Mika saved my life with just a few words. In saving me, he could easily lose his own life: when they could not find a Moslem, a Serb was good enough. They started voting. Two of them were against taking the Serb. One of them even said:

- We don't need a Serb. Just being Serbian means that he has seen a lot of troubles in life. I would not want to be in his skin for anything. We need a Moslem scum (balija). -

They went into another building to look for a balija on whom they could vent their hate. It was then that I realized the meaning of a graffiti written in large letters on a building in Rondo: “Thank you, Mother, that I am not a Serb”. That graffiti is still there today.

This unfortunate man helped many Moslems during the course of the war. He had the bad luck always to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had seen a lot and knew a lot. He was present when they killed his wife, who was the sister of a prominent person from Mostar. They took him away and nobody saw him again. Even today nobody knows where he finished up.

10. KILL ME AND THEM AS WELL

The following morning they separated out all the men. They came to collect attractive young girls, those with long hair, and they took them into the woods. I was frightened for my daughter, Fuadina, who was only fifteen and had long blonde hair. As I did not have any scissors, I laid her long pigtail onto a flat stone and with another stone I managed to cut it off. I found a piece of canvas to cover her but it was no good. When they came to my daughter, they took off the canvas, and my mother-in-law started to cry; she hugged her and said:

A soldier pulled my mother-in-law’s arm away so hard that her upper arm was dislocated at the shoulder. Another one grabbed Fuadina and started to drag her away, while she was resisting. At that moment, General Mladic appeared and said:

- Here, the buses have arrived. Whoever wants to go, may go! Do not take anything inside. Just give the children something to eat. -

If a mother had some food and put it in front of her child, the soldiers would kick at their mouths with their boots, so their little teeth would come out. The soldiers even put their shoes into the children's mouths:

-Here, eat this. This is meat. You don't know what meat is. You don’t know what bread is, either. –

- Don't worry about anything – but he had already given his army orders what to do.

- Two buses can go to Tuzla and twenty to Ljubovija Bridge. You know your orders, don't you? -

All the people started going towards the buses, but some women and men were separated out and were not allowed to get onto the buses.

I went back to a place where they had killed a woman. She was wearing ‘‘dimije’’; the baggy Turkish-style trousers Moslem women wore in the countryside. I took them off the dead woman and put them on my ten-year-old son, Ramiz.

As we stood in front of the bus, they took aside one boy just two meters away from us. They stripped him and cutting off his testes they ordered his mother to eat them. When they came to us they asked me:

Two buses headed to a place called Kravice, and the other twenty headed towards the Drina River, to the Ljubovija Bridge. Even today nobody knows what happened to those people. I lost eleven people from my family, and my mother-in-law lost twenty-two people from her family. My father-in-law was killed, my husband, my brother, my sister and her two children, my brother-in-law also disappeared.

- Don't hurt me any more. The more you hurt these people, the more you hurt me. Let me drive through. If you wanted to hurt them so much, why didn’t you kill them at Potocari, so that nobody would survive and nobody would suffer!!!! -

Along the way we saw piles of dead people. Some were tied, some were hanged. Some they placed on spits to be roasted, while others they roasted. Some were making fires, others were killing people, and a third group was digging up the ground with a bulldozer.

Two troop carriers stopped us at Kravice. One man came out of a troop carrier and ordered our driver to come down, but he refused, saying:

- I don't want to leave the bus, nor will I give these people to you! If you want to do something to them, I will drive the bus into the river. Better that they die that way than that you torture them! -

Then another man approached and they grabbed our driver by the arms, and pulling him by the ears, nose and head, they tried to pull him out of the bus:

He managed to get free of them and to drive away. A few meters on, a Serbian army unit stopped him.

- Get out. Your sons are above in the woods, call them to come out and join you! -

- I’m going on, and whoever of the Serbian army tries to stop me, I'll run him down! -

3 Zeljko Raznatovic-Arkan, an infamous ''vojvoda'' (captain) of Serbian paramilitary troops

4 Balija is a pejorative expression for Moslems, meaning an uncultured peasant or “scum”

5 ''Green'' means any member of the Moslem confession.

6 a ''cetnik'' a member of Serbian militant forces fought on the side of the enemy

7 a kokarda, a feather-shaped badge worn on a cetnik's fur hat

8 radna obaveza- working obligation- people had to do various humiliating jobs in order to survive

9 Kninska krajina - a border area between Knin and Croatia

10 ''beli orlovi'' ( white eagles), members of Dragoslav Bokan’s military force

11 '' Marija dvor'' – a living area in Sarajevo

12 ''ustasa'' , a member of Croatian militant forces

4. Excerpts from the book: ''GOOD PEOPLE IN THE EVIL TIMES''

1. ''SEVEN DAYS LATER''