TW: War

In May 1992 the first bombs were dropped on the village Bljećeva. Bljećeva is the village where my family is from. My family lived there for generations.

This is the location of the village. Really close to the Serbian borders, right. So you can imagine how often our village was under attack.

This is the location where our settlement was in the village. Now there is nothing there. Some of our neighbours returned close by others build their homes on other locations.
Most of them had nowhere else to go, so they had to return to their destroyed homes.

In 1992, bevor the UN troops arrived, we were under attack non-stop. In May 1992 my great-grandfather was killed. I remember that attack quite vividly because of his death. The sun was not up an we heared bombs dropping everywhere.

I was still 3 years old, my brother 2. My mother picked my brother up and pulled me by the hand. She told me to run as fast as I can. We first hid in my cousins cellar across the street. My grandparents and great-grandfather were with us, many other neighbors aswell.

At some point people were telling the younger ones to leave this shelter and to go to a safer place, because no one knew how long this house would hold up. My grandparents and great-grandfather stayed behind. We left the cellar.

We run across the village under constant artillery attack. There were no trees or anything that could hide us from the shots that were fired at us. Somehow we made it to to the end of our settlement. There was a hill and slight slope that led to another settlement of the village.

My mother went in the first house were other neighbors were hiding as well. Back then you just run into any house or cellar that was open and hid there until it was save to leave. We waited in that house for our family members.

After some time the bombing stopped. Some neighbors from our first hiding location arrived. They told us that our great-grandfather was killed by a granade splinter. The splinter went through the wooden door of the cellar and hit his leg. He bleed to death.

He constantly asked for water as he was dying. No one was able to fulfill his last wish, because of the ongoing attacks. My Great-grandfather Salko Jahić was born in 1908. We buried him an the others, who were killed, during the following night without any ceremony.

During the attacks in 1992 most of our homes were either completely destroyed or not inhabitable. Our livestock was killed, our food supplies were burned down, electricity and any form of communication was cut off.

Miraculously, our village kept fighting till the fall of Srebrenica, 1995. In total 112 of our villagers were killed during the war. Many massgraves were found on this location.

To this day I treasure Bljećeva more than any other place in the world. This is the village were my ancestors are from. To me it is the most beautiful place in the world. I'm so proud of my family members who have returned there and are trying to live a normal live again.