CNN Balkan Conflict News

Tears

Latest Moslem refugees tell of horrors they've endured

October 20, 1995
Web posted at: 1 a.m. EDT (0500 GMT)

Christiane Amanpour

From International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour

ZENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (CNN) -- The peace plan in Bosnia calls for the right of all refugees to return to their homes, but recent events make that unlikely.

Despite the cease-fire, civilians on all sides are still being kicked out of their homes. Relief officials say 120,000 Serbs have arrived in the Banja Luka region over the past 10 days, fleeing Bosnian government offensives. At the same time, Serbs are ethnically cleansing thousands of Moslems and Croats from the region.

Spraying for disease

Thousands of Moslem refugees have flocked to the government-held town of Zenica. In a bowling alley, a former cinema and a school gymnasium, the latest victims of ethnic cleansing wait out endless days. They are the newest batch of Bosnians with bleak futures.

The risk of disease in these cramped centers is great. The American-based International Rescue Committee is one of several organizations that has been trying to help since the latest exodus began 10 days ago.

woman

"This was, I think, the worst that I've seen," said David Robinson, a spokesman for the IRC. "We really were not prepared for this at all. It happened overnight. They just started showing up." (145K AIFF sound or 145K WAV sound)

In the past few weeks, government offensives caused a wave of Serb civilians to flee to the Banja Luka region. In turn, Serb authorities there resumed the expulsion of Moslems and Croat minorities. Six thousand Moslems have come to the Bosnian government-held town of Zenica. They came with little more than terrible stories

two women

"Five masked men dragged me from my bed," said a woman named Merima, crying as she told her story. "They didn't tell me where I was going, just that they were going to kill me." They didn't, but she had to leave her mother, husband and two children behind.

Another woman said she was raped by three Serbs before being taken by bus to the front line and forced to walk across.

This summer and fall Serbs have thrown out tens of thousands of Moslem civilians in what the United Nations says is a final phase of ethnic cleansing. They tell similar stories of beatings, of money and jewelry stolen and their families taken away.

A woman says Serbs kidnapped her husband, then demanded 500 German marks for his return. She borrowed the money, but she didn't get her husband back.

children

Mostly women, children and the elderly escaped. Based on their stories, the U.N. believes at least 5,000 Moslem men of fighting age from the Banja Luka region have been detained or worse.

"Those who tried to escape were shot," said a refugee named Husein. "If I had known what was going to happen to me, I would have killed myself."

And so the refugees wait for an end to their pain, with the hope that what lies ahead could not possibly be as horrible as what lies behind them now.



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