used without permission, for "fair use" only

Evicted, Then Forgotten

by Radmila Karlas (AIM)

Slobodna Bosna, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, March 8, 1996

Two elderly people pause for a moment in front of the orphanage Radmila Vranjesevic in Banja Luka. A man without a leg, in a wheelchair and his wife: Stjepan Bokan (63), a Croat, and Honorata (72) an ethnic Ukrainian; they had been evicted from their own house in Banja Luka three months ago. For three months these two elderly people moved from acquaintances' homes to apartments of relatives to finally arrive at the only place which at this time offers some sort of shelter.

We can smell the dampness in the air as we enter the orphanage wing in which the evicted persons live. In one of the rooms we encounter a young woman with a baby son. Munira Dulic is 34-years-old. She is crying while she tells us about her case.

"I lived in an apartment in the township of Mejdan with my mother and a child. My father has died, I've divorced my husband, one of my brothers is in Norway and another one is retarded and lives in Velika Kladusa. We started having a lot of problems starting with the Serb exodus from Krajina in August 1995. Almost daily, armed people were coming to our apartment and telling us to leave, to go to Jajce or Travnik. They were mostly policemen from counties which remained under Muslim or Croatian control. During those 'visits', the policemen took away our certificate of ownership for the apartment and twice beat up my mother Mirsada who is very ill."

We Don't Want to go to Alija, but to our Homes

One day, Munira set out towards Gornji Seher in order to throw herself and her child from a bridge to the river Vrbas. She was saved by a woman who happened to be passing by. Seven men arrived at the beginning of November. They told her, her mother and her son, who has a heart ailment and suffers from chronic bronchial asthma, to get out of the apartment in ten minutes. The men were from Drvar.

"They tried to convince us to go to our territory; they said, go to Alija. What am I going to do there? I could have left this city so many times, but I was born here and I want to stay here regardless of the consequences. One of them hit me, then my mother; the child started to scream. We moved to our relatives' place, but they are very poor, so we had to look for another solution. They sent us here from the Red Cross. Unfortunately, even here there is a lack of solidarity. Some have while some don't. None of the 'neighbors' asks whether I need something. As if the people have lost the feeling of solidarity," concludes Munira.

Dzevad, until recently a soldier in the Army of the republic of Srpska from Sipovo near Jajce, lives in the same room. His being in the Serb army didn't make his life a lot easier. Today, he doesn't know the whereabouts of his family, nor does he know what will happen to him.

"The truth must be told," says Stjepan Bokan while entering Munira Dulic's room in his wheelchair. "When Jajce fell, a neighbor came to me, gave me the keys and told me to go there, and to leave my house to him. He gave me two and a half hours to decide. I stayed put, and than he started shouting that both me and my wife would die, and I realized that he wasn't kidding. He didn't allow us to take anything, not even our personal papers."

While the media in Banja Luka write about Ukrainian-Serb friendship, Stjepan's wife Honorata, an Ukrainian, is bitter that the man who forced them out of their house was their neighbor, neither a refugee nor in any danger.

Rahima Lisac (61) used to live behind the department store Boska in the center of the city. She was the owner of the apartment in which she lived. She lived in the apartment with her 93-years-old mother who died at the orphanage a few days before.

Even Police are Powerless

"My husband and my mother are buried here. I was born here and I will stay here," she says. "I was evicted from my apartment by four armed policemen. They told us that the bus to Travnik was leaving in ten minutes. That was in October 1995. I cried and begged them to at least allow me to change in the bathroom. They didn't let me and than my neighbor and my best friend, Milica Arezina, came into the apartment. They threatened her as well, but she said that we would remain friends until we die," says Rahima who shares a room with another five women.

In one of the rooms, we find eight men, most of them elderly.

"I stayed in Banja Luka, although other members of my family went to Sweden. I was fired from a company in which I had worked from more than 30 years; I've had a work obligation for more than two years," relates Mustafa Hasanagic (60), who is visibly ill. Now, he will have to move out of Banja Luka; because of his illness he cannot stay at the orphanage, and some policemen are in his house. "I have already given a statement for the ICRC, my family has sent the papers from Sweden, and I'll leave soon. There, I'll perhaps die from sorrow for Banja Luka."

Asim Gazic also had a house in the very center of the city. In his case, Banja Luka police reacted almost 40 times, and he was consequently left alone for a while. Until November, when he was evicted although he had taken two Serb policemen into his house.

"Let us be clear," says Asim, "I don't blame all Serbs. These evictions and looting of houses and apartments were carried out by armed gangs, majority of whom are not from Banja Luka. Banja Luka Police Chief himself tried to protect me but in the end, the stronger ones prevailed. Regardless, I am angry at Banja Luka authorities."

Rifat Dostovic (59) is a Muslim, his wife Marija a Croat. They lived alone (they have no children) in a two room apartment in Ante Jakic township in Banja Luka. Since the August exodus, they have been through a real calvary.

"I cannot recall all those who beat me. I have been beaten up more than ten times. Only because I am a Muslim. At the suggestion of Banja Luka police, we took in the family of Radosav Misic from Jajce. Then some other policemen came and threw out both us and those poor souls from the apartment. They screamed at them that they cannot move in to an apartment in the center of the city," says Rifat. His wife Marija hasn't fared better. She has also been beaten up by policemen several times.

This is a Shame for Banja Luka!

"At the moment, there are more than 30 persons at the orphanage Rada Vranjesevic; most of them are Muslims, although there are a few Croats," stated at the start of our conversation the director of the orphanage, Danilo Ponjarac. "All of them had been evicted from their apartments and houses and arrived here four months ago. The Bokans arrived yesterday and we took them in. This is a shame for this city. International Committee of Red Cross interceded in all of this cases since these people, immediately after their evictions, were forced to stay at the stairs in front of the ICRC offices, and that is unacceptable. Banja Luka mayor, Predrag Radic, asked then for my assistance so we adapted the space here in order to be able to provide accommodation for these people. At first they were supposed to stay here for two weeks until their cases were resolved, but they are still here and no one is doing anything," says Ponjarac. According to Ponjarac, the orphanage has set aside five rooms, one living room and one kitchen for the homeless. "Besides them there are 130 orphans of all ethnic backgrounds in the orphanage. Since at first we didn't get any assistance for evicted persons who were not Serbs, we fed them together with the children. We gave out 90 meals every day for four months; recently we have started a public kitchen for the poor and evicted persons at the shelter for the poor, so that the situation is now somewhat better. But that is hardly a solution. These people are old and ill. One old lady probably has tuberculosis and another one died two days ago. We called the Ambulance, but it didn't arrive. Then we had to move her to the morgue, so we contacted Banja Luka effendi, but they also couldn't help us, so the old woman had to "spend the night" in a room with six living persons. Finally, the Islamic Community buried her," says Danilo Ponjarac.

According to him, some of the people living at the orphanage have filed cases at the Banja Luka court seeking to return to their apartments. So far none of those cases has been concluded.