Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995

The people of Goražde love Sacco, but mostly because of his access to the Blue Road. Named for the blue helmets of UN soldiers, the road is a UN-protected route from Sarajevo to the Goražde enclave. The road is dangerous, as it winds completely through Serb territory. Though the ceasefire is meant to allow unhindered access to Goražde, the Serbs hold up convoys. Sacco’s second trip to Goražde was rocky, as Serb soldiers held the convoy up for hours, demanding to see what they were carrying and even throwing a rock through a windshield.

What few convoys get through, however, are a major relief to Goražde. They bring food, clothes, as well as the first packages since the beginning of the war. Many ask Sacco to deliver letters and packages back to Sarajevo when he can. He brings baby clothes to Riki’s sister and often spends his first few hours in Goražde distributing parcels. Many in Goražde see the Blue Road as the future and hope that Sacco’s access to it signifies that they soon will be able to use it too. This hope comes with despair, though, as some think that if the Blue Road collapses, Goražde will be lost.

Access to Goražde through the Blue Road is unstable, and after the Serbs block a convoy because of their transport of an unwanted journalist into Goražde, access to the press is cut off. No one will take Sacco for weeks. When he finally returns, he is glad to be back and begins to understand how the people of Goražde feel being cut off.

On the morning of May 4, 1992, Edin’s mother woke him up as they heard shots in the distance. Edin called his Serb friends, but no one picked up, and his Muslim friends were also confused. The Serbs of Goražde were gone. The night before, the Serbs left Goražde, fleeing to Serb areas around the town. Edin’s family listened to Serb radio stations, hearing propaganda that all Muslim people must be killed.

Edin watched his Serb neighbors’ empty houses, and a few days later, when he saw some return, he went to speak with them. They told Edin that commands were coming from above and that they could not do anything. The neighbors warned Edin and his family to leave before it became dangerous. On May 13, there was a lot of gunfire overnight, and soon after, Edin’s family moved to the neighborhood of Kopaci, closer to the center of town.

A disco opens up in Goražde, the Piramida. Sacco goes with some friends, though they soon proclaim boredom and leave. Sacco notices that the youth of Goražde, safer than they have been in years, now seem angered to be trapped in the town, finding it boring. They want to move on from the war and reconnect with the world and culture.

Sacco visits the library, part of the Cultural Center. The library lost 15,000 books from their catalogue because of bombs and more from those killed and wounded who did not return any. Throughout the war, the Cultural Center continued its work and programming, supporting and promoting artists and musicians. Sacco finds that the people around him crave news from the outside world. He tells them about movies and sports, filling them in on what they missed.

One morning, Edin’s mother rushes inside, her hands swollen from washing clothes in the cold river. Her washing machine was destroyed when Serb neighbors burned their house. Edin shows Sacco a video that he filmed of the house’s damage, though it soon switches to scenes from a Serb wedding party. Edin’s mother recognizes many of the attendees. Edin’s family is lucky since none of them died during the war, though each of the men were wounded.

Edin’s mother tells Sacco that before the war, she did everything with her Serb neighbors, and though she could live next to them again, nothing would be the same as it was.

On the morning of May 22, 1992, Edin was on guard on a hill in Kopaci and watched the first attack on Kokino Selo through fog and rain. A man named Izet tells Sacco about that morning. He saw that the Serbs attacking were their neighbors; one man was the friend of his son who once did homework in his house. He ran back to the house of Ibro and Rumsa, a large house where most of the neighborhood was staying for safety. They all decided to escape to the river.

People were shot in the streets as they ran. Izet took his daughter, but his wife stayed behind when they ran across a street. As he ran, Izet was shot in the leg. People crawled to the river, under gunfire. As Izet and his daughter crawled, they saw wounded and dead all around them. It took him two hours to reach the Drina, and he took another bullet to the arm. Rumsa was near Izet with her one-year-old daughter. When she was shot in the back, her older daughter took the child but was wounded in the head. Someone dragged Rumsa and took her one-year-old but left her older daughter. Izet later learned that his wife died where she stayed behind.

Edin’s brother and grandmother were in Kokino Selo when the attack happened and only learned that they were safe after a week. His brother was hit with shrapnel but still carried his grandmother to the river. Edin’s best friends stayed behind to protect people and were captured. Two days after the attack, Edin could see from the hill that his family’s house was burning. That summer, Edin guarded some Serb prisoners, some of whom he knew. One prisoner told him that it was Edin’s neighbors, boys he grew up with, who burned his house down.

In August and September, the Bosnian forces repelled the Serbs out of town, and Edin went back to his old neighborhood. He saw people looting the houses of Serbs around them and even burning houses to the ground out of retribution. Edin and his brother found some of their belongings in their Serb neighbors’ houses, and with their father, they began repairing their house.

As the community moved back to Kokino Selo, they found bodies in houses, their friends and families murdered by Serbs. The following March, they found a shallow grave with seven bodies, two of whom were Edin’s best friends.

One night, Edin corrects math tests, lamenting his students’ poor performances. He, like many other teachers, splits his time between the front and the classroom. The infrequency of school, impacted by Serbian offenses, hinders the students’ growth. One student told Sacco that she did not attend school for eight months and that she forgot everything. Students lost friends and family and often had to move. When they returned to school, they found empty seats and their classmates gone.

Sacco witnesses a man come to Edin with the son of his best friend, who was killed in the war. He asks that the boy, who is flunking, be passed for his commitment to the army. Edin asks that the boy split his time between the front and school, but the boy does not want to.

Like the students, the schools suffer, damaged by the war. There is a shortage of teachers and supplies, and students struggle to keep up with the fast pace. Students ready to move on to university cannot. Edin himself came back to Goražde before finishing his degree in mechanical engineering. He only needed to defend his dissertation, a 15-minute talk, to graduate.

On the night before Riki is to return to the front, he spends time with Sacco and Edin. Riki recites the details of the sexual harassment case that Paula Jones brings against Bill Clinton, saying that he memorized it from an issue of Time while at the front, during the downtime that the ceasefire provides. Riki tells Sacco that it helps his English, and Sacco transcribes American songs for Riki to memorize. Riki wants to become an American.

The next morning, Riki procrastinates leaving for as long as possible, singing. When he finally leaves, Sacco is emotional.

Sacco begins smoking in Goražde, from packs of Drinas delivered on convoys. These cigarettes are manufactured in Sarajevo and named after the river that runs along the border of Serbia and through Goražde. Sacco interviews refugees with Edin’s help and learns about the horrors that happened in towns along the Drina. At the beginning of the war, bodies of dead Muslims floated down from Foca.

Everyone who worked in town, whether at the school, at the hospital, or on the front, was paid in packs of Drinas. The head nurse tells Sacco how she was the only one tending thousands of refugees in 1992 from Višegrad. She had no supplies and had to use brandy as a pain killer. In those days, she smoked nettles and grape leaves, and she was happy to then have Drinas. Edin continues to worry about the fate of Goražde, believing that “Gorazde needs Sarajevo, but Sarajevo does not need Gorazde” and therefore will trade the town in negotiations (108).