Twenty-five years ago, an NGO began giving bereaved and traumatised Bosnian women a helping hand. Tens of thousands have benefited. And that’s exactly what she recalls from the immediate aftermath of Bosnia’s…
Category: Interview
BALKAN STATES STILL CELEBRATING CRIMINALS
Reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia will be hard to achieve while war criminals are still treated as heroes, the chief prosecutor at the Hague Tribunal, Serge Brammertz, told BIRN ahead of its…
‘WE WERE JUST LIKE THEM’ – IN BOSNIA, PAST MEETS PRESENT
Leila Naser Saleh Syrian refugees are arriving in ever greater numbers in Bosnia. Twenty-five years ago, Bosnia’s own were going the other way. Leila Naser Saleh was a few weeks short of…
BOSNIAN MUSLIMS: ‘HOW DID WE DESERVE THIS?’
Eldin ELEZOVIC,president of the Congress of North American Bosniaks Elezovic, pictured outside the Cevabdzinica Sarajevo restaurant in Queens, New York, was imprisoned at the Croat-run Gabela prison camp for nine months in…
REMEMBERING THE SREBRENICA GENOCIDE: PROFOUND DARKNESS AND A RAY OF LIGHT
LISA PALMIERI-BILLIG* TRIESTE At the Italian Senate on July 11 a small ceremony marked the 22nd anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre of nearly 9000 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs under the command…
SREBRENICAS GENOCIDE THAT WENT UNPUNISHED
Twenty-two years after the Srebrenica genocide, direct perpetrators of mass killings of Bosniaks at several lesser-known execution sites have still not been charged or put on trial. BIRN’s ‘TV Justice’ programme investigates…
BOSNIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT ‘UNDER PRESSURE’ FROM SERB REFERENDUM
A Bosnian Serb referendum challenging the authority of the country’s Constitutional Court represents “direct political pressure†aimed at undermining the state-level institution, its president told BIRN. The president of the Constitutional Court…
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM CAN CHANGE LIVES
By Erna Mackic and Denis Dzidic Investigative journalism can bring about change and improve people’s lives, said Marty Kaiser and Blake Morrison, two senior editors who lectured at this year’s BIRN Summer…
CLUB AT BELLAIRE TEACHES STUDENTS ABOUT BOSNIA
There was something about being in Bosnia that called out to Elmedina Cupovic. “It was like feeling that I belong there even though I have a home here,†the 10-year-old girl recalled….
WITNESSES REFUSE TO TESTIFY
Senaid Ibrahimefendic, the president of the District Court of Eastern Sarajevo, said witnesses refusing to testify in war crimes cases is the most frequent problem his court faces. In an interview for…