Seventeen Years of Restarting Broken Lives

Mercy Corps Founder Dan O'Neill with a young child who was displaced by the Bosnian War. O'Neill took several visits to the region, both during the war and afterward. Photo: Mercy Corps

Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Refija Halilovic sits on a small stool bathed in late morning sunlight, her son Maumer resting quietly against her knee. It is a scene of almost bucolic tranquility, but one whose quiet belies the trauma that led these two to a tiny apartment here.

When fighting engulfed her home village of Krizevici at the outset of the Bosnian War in 1992, Refija and her family joined the estimated two million people uprooted by the conflict — nearly half of the entire population of the country. Local officials directed Refija's family to an abandoned home as temporary shelter; they settled in as best they could, making the site home for more than two years.

Though peace returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, thousands of homes across the country were damaged or destroyed, leaving many like Refija with nothing to return to.

Adrift in the war's aftermath

Despite being displaced, Refija tried to make the best of her situation. She married in 1996, and moved with her husband to yet another abandoned home. Though they had little, the birth of her son Muamer in 1998 seemed to mark a new beginning for Refija — the nightmare years of the war now increasingly distant. But just a few months later, the war came back in an unexpected and shattering way.

"For the first time, I will have my own home,” Refija said. Photo: David Snyder for Mercy Corps

"My husband was killed when he stepped on a mine after returning to check on his family home," Refija said. "So I went back to the house where my parents lived."

She was displaced yet again, this time with an eight-month-old son.

The next years of Refija's life were spent largely adrift, until she finally found a small apartment in the city of Tuzla — one of 220 units built by an international agency and provided free of charge by the local municipality for those still displaced by the war.

"I keep chickens and plant food in the garden," Refija said. "Here, being alone with a child, it's difficult. It's better to have family around."

It was here in Tuzla that Refija first came in contact with Mercy Corps. One of the agency's staff members came through Refija's neighborhood, posting notice about the availability of housing built through Mercy Corps' local office.

She immediately envisioned something better for herself and her now eight-year-old son.

The keys to a new future

Refija applied to the Mercy Corps programme, and in November 2006 received the news she and Muamer at first could not believe: they had been chosen to receive a home.

"I was first surprised, and confused, but I was very happy," Refija said. "My boy came to me three times that day to see if the contract had been signed."

In May 2007, Refija received the keys to her new home — one of more than 10,000 that Mercy Corps has built in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1995. The house, located in her home village of Krizevici, is only a few hundred yards from her family, who were eventually themselves able to resettle.

After more than 15 years of homelessness, much of that time spent in cramped confines amid the tension of war and its aftermath, the move this summer will mark both an end to the stress of these past years and an important new beginning.

"What I'm looking forward to most is the privacy, the peace and quiet," Refija said. "And for the first time, I will have my own home."

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Photo: Roger Burks/Mercy Corps

Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Omer Spahic's culinary specialty is a savory bean dish called grah. Of all the meals I ate during two weeks in the Balkans, it is quite possibly the best.

And of all the stories I heard during that time — heart-wrenching tales that will forever haunt and move me — Spahic's was among the most inspiring.

As we sit around a white plastic table — one of seven in the tiny dining room of his ascinica, or short-order café — several people walk through the restaurant's front door. Some stay to eat, but most just come in to greet Spahic, catch up on news and get back on their way. He greets each like an old friend.

Spahic is a restaurateur by trade, but over the last 14 years he's been a refugee, a pioneer and a benefactor to war-torn families in the area around Srebrenica. His café is the focal point for Bosnian Muslim families who've received Mercy Corps aid to return to this small city, home to one of the 20th century's worst massacres.

Diminutive and wrapped in a white apron, Spahic seems an unlikely leader — until he starts telling his story.

Years away from home

Spahic has been in the restaurant business since 1958, when he worked for a state-owned hotel in Zvornik, a city about an hour north of here. In 1966, he decided to move back to his quiet, idyllic hometown of Srebrenica to try his own luck and open a small café. For 26 years, he and his wife Jamila operated the business on a tiny back street and enjoyed moderate success. He cooked the main dishes while she confected the desserts. They had dozens of regular customers that came in to enjoy a hot, traditional meal and easygoing conversation.

Then, in 1992, everything changed. As the Bosnian War started to rage and ethnic divisions turned violent, Spahic and his family were forced to flee Srebrenica. There was no time to pack. They abandoned their home, restaurant and the life they'd built for three decades and escaped to Tuzla, a predominately Muslim city two hours away.

They didn't even have a change of clothes.

For two years they lived in Tuzla, finding whatever work they could to survive as the front lines of a horrific war advanced ever closer. They were cut off from their children, who were going to school two hours away in Sarajevo, a one-time Olympic host city under constant siege and bombardment.

In 1994, Spahic and his wife made a brave decision to find their children and make their family whole again. They traveled from Tuzla to Sarajevo, hitchhiking and walking along mountainous roads. It took them more than 24 hours to traverse what is normally a two-hour trip. After reaching Sarajevo's outskirts, they made their way into the city through an 860-metre-long underground tunnel.

Reunited with their children, they rode out the remainder of the war in Sarajevo and stayed there until 1999, four years after the guns finally fell silent. At that time, Spahic decided it was time to go home to Srebrenica.

His was the first Bosnian Muslim family to return to a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina that was synonymous with death.

The courage to stay

Even though the war had ended, Srebrenica remained an inhospitable place for Bosnian Muslims, including Spahic and his family. This is the place where approximately 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred and thrown into mass graves. In many ways, Srebrenica was — and remains — the single biggest symbol for the cruelty and bloodshed of the Bosnian War.

To Spahic, though, it had always been home.

Unfortunately, the family returned to Srebrenica to find the city in shambles and, most painfully, their home and restaurant partially ruined. Two Bosnian Serb families had claimed those parts of the building that were habitable. Since Spahic was a returnee and a Bosnian Muslim in a predominately Bosnian Serb area, he didn't have any rights or recourse to evict those families from his house. To raise a grievance might have meant harm for him and his family.

So Spahic and his family moved into an apartment building that had been purchased and renovated by the U.S. Embassy for the use of Bosnian Muslim returnees. During his time there, Spahic made the acquaintance of not only other returnee families, but American and other international officials as well.

He became an advocate for the rights of returnee families and a voice for those who faced the challenges of trying to reclaim their homes and lost livelihoods.

In 2001, the families that had been squatting in Spahic's building finally left — but not before looting, trashing and burning what remained of the house and restaurant. Again, Spahic could only watch.

He continued to live in the space provided by the U.S. Embassy, and his reputation as a leader of returnees grew. He even met with the American ambassador to discuss the difficulties of once-displaced families returning to the area.

The ambassador listened, took notice and contacted an organisation he was sure could help the Spahics and other families that had returned to Srebrenica.

Photo: David Snyder for Mercy Corps

A grand re-opening

The U.S. Embassy got in touch with Mercy Corps, which had been operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1993. The organisation was working with returnee families in other parts of the country, helping them return to their homes and restore their businesses.

Mercy Corps came to Srebrenica to meet and discuss its assistance programmes with Spahic and other returnees. Soon afterward, the organisation began rebuilding Spahic's house.

The American Ambassador even came to Srebrenica on his own birthday to help with the rebuilding of Bosnian Muslim returnee houses. Spahic marked the occasion by cooking him burek, a flavorful meat pie prepared for special events and celebrations.

In 2002, Spahic and his family were finally able to move back into their home. They were also able to re-open their restaurant, thanks to new kitchen appliances furnished by Mercy Corps as part of an economic development grant.

Since then, business has steadily been improving. A popular saying among locals is, "If you don't eat at [Spahic's restaurant] while you're in Srebrenica, then you've never been to Srebrenica."

Queen Noor of Jordan must have gotten the message; she's eaten here in recent years, her visit commemorated with a picture on the wall. Countless national politicians and international diplomats have dined here, too.

Still, Spahic's most important clientele remains the families he befriended during his first harrowing months back in Srebrenica. They still come here for food and fellowship, to commiserate about the past and offer each other encouragement for the future. Mercy Corps often comes up in their conversations.

"Mercy Corps has supported everyone who's returned here in some way - farmers, carpenters, businessmen," Spahic says. "Small or large, the assistance you offered was always timely, thoughtful and important."

Something sweet

After I've sopped every morsel of grah from my bowl with warm, fluffy bread, Spahic emerges from the kitchen with a treat from his wife: apple baklava drizzled with local honey. It is ambrosial and soul soothing.

And then my Mercy Corps colleague Darko tells me something even sweeter than the dessert.

"At the end of each day, Mr. Spahic takes the restaurant's leftovers and hand delivers them to poor returnee families in the area," he whispers. "He will never say this, but we've heard it from a lot of the families we're helping."

As we pay the meagre bill and leave the restaurant, Spahic hands me a to-go box, even though I'm certain I've finished all my food. He says something, and nods his head slightly.

"Burek," Darko translates. "He wanted you to try it."

I smile, shake the courageous restaurateur's hand and walk out into the chilly late-winter afternoon. Spahic calls out something else as we make our way to the car.

"He said to come back soon," Darko tells me.

I really wish I could.

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