Božena Fickov

ESCAPE ACROSS THE DOBRINJA RIVER

I used to live in Otes, where I had my own apartment. They attacked us on the morning of 1st of December. For four whole days there was chaos. The heavens and the earth were one, as they say. Outside, everything was black from the shooting. Then on the fourth we were given - the army informed us that we were to retreat with them and that they would protect us. We were moved from building to building, until they found out where the people were being evacuated. Then they started shooting. I watched soldiers falling. I wasn’t yet aware that they were dying. They returned us to the garage. We crossed a field, practically crawling. Bullets were landing around us shells were falling, until we got to the river. Then we went into the river, went through the river, until we climbed out, barely, of the water. We hid in those houses, wherever we could. I will never forget seeing a young man who had lost his leg, next to him a young woman was lying there dead, calling for someone to help him. People were fleeing at all cost. When we had gotten a bit farther away, we reached Azici cold and desperate, and from there we got to Stup. From there we were driven to Sarajevo. We weren’t conscious of where we were going nor where we were. And we were dropped off at Alipasino Polje. Then we found out about my friend, that he was dead. I didn’t know about their mother, that she was dead. I didn’t find that until we got to the center. I was hit hard by that news. And children were wounded, and women. We had lost grandpa along the way, we didn’t know where he was. When we arrived at the day-care center, we started to count everybody, because we didn’t know who was where. Then we realized that many of us were missing.