The Village of the Widows

Paddy Ashdown, Bosnia's international administrator, points to Suceska as an example of what has been possible. It took four years even after the Dayton peace accords for Muslims to return from the areas they were ethnically cleansed from, particularly Srebrenica. "It took courage beyond imagination," he says of those who did return. "The heroes are the ordinary people of this country, prepared to move back... It's the way of the Balkans, once every several decades a tide of blood washes over them and they take the pieces and rebuild." But he concedes that the problems remain huge, particularly the poor economy; without jobs, there's little for refugees to return home to.

Suceska's women would readily agree. "The return means nothing," says Sabra Kolenovic, of the Women of Srebrenica organization, who chose to stay in Sarajevo. "It will be like this as long as Bosnia is divided into two entities." Srebrenica, though 75 percent Muslim before the war, falls into the part of Bosnia controlled by the Republika Srpska. "Why did they send us back to Suceska?" asks Ahmo Ademovic, one of the village's surviving men. "We are just the dead end appendix of Bosnia." Soon, the dirt road to town will be paved; already, there are new electric lines connecting the village. But hardly anyone has a car; no one has telephones.

Still, the bereaved are trying to rebuild their lives. At 45, Muska Ametovic underwent fertility treatment in the hope of having a child to replace her lost son. Four years ago, she bore another son, Mohammed. She sees little hope for him; when he's older, he'll go to the Serb-run school in Srebrenica, where there are icons and crosses on all the walls, and teachers who still insist on Radovan Karadzic's version of history. "The worst," she says, "is that we are so sad, we live in sadness."

With Zoran Cirjakovic in Suceska

© 2005