PRESS

Sarajevo, August 10, 2007

 

BOSNIANS GET DESPERATE TO RETURN THEIR PRE-WAR HOMES

 

Safet Music is so desperate to return to the home he fled at the start of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war that he is
willing to fund its reconstruction by selling one of his kidneys.

"I'm not the only one for whom the war destroyed everything. I know the state cannot repair everything in
24 hours, but we have been waiting for far too long," said Music, standing beside ruins that were once his
family home.

"I am so desperate that I would not hesitate to sell a kidney for 2,500 euros (3,500 dollars)" even though
it is illegal, said the 36-year-old Muslim.

Music, who returned to his hometown of Bosanski Novi in 2002, has for the past two years lived for free
in a partly damaged house owned by a former refugee.

Music, his mentally ill wife Edina and two children aged 15 and 11, are forced to eke out a living on the
40 euros (56 dollars) they receive in social aid each month.

All but seven euros (nine dollars) of this government handout are spent on the medicine his wife needs,
making simple needs like bread a luxury.

"I have been contacting every institution to help me to reconstruct the house. I don't know who to
approach anymore," said Music, who along with his eldest son does odd jobs like wood chopping to
supplement the family income.

"It seems that the only way out is to sell a kidney in order to get the money," he said in a faint voice as he
flicked through a collection of x-rays and documents he has gathered about the medical procedure.
The sale of human organs is illegal in Bosnia, but some people like Music have been putting ads in local
newspapers offering their body parts for sale in a bid to break out of poverty.

The authorities have issued warnings against such moves, notably after reports that some locals were
traveling to certain Asian countries to have their kidneys removed in return for cash.

Bosanski Novi, a picturesque town at the confluence of the Sana and Una rivers on the western border
with Croatia, was "ethnically cleansed" by Serb forces at the outbreak of war.

Encouraged by signs of post-war progress, families like the Musics have since returned but continue to
face hardships such as joblessness and slow support in reconstructing their homes.

Around 320,000 houses have been rebuilt since the war left some 2.2 million Bosnians homeless.
But the fate of the Music family is still all too common -- some 45,000 homes still need to be
reconstructed, and this is happening at an increasingly slow rate, causing worries about the plight of the
half a million people still listed as refugees.

"We thought that the reconstruction work would be completed by 2007, but that is not even close to being
fulfilled," an official from the human rights and refugee ministry told AFP.

The authorities blame a shortage of funds.
"Unfortunately our budget is not sufficient to rebuild everything that was destroyed during the war," said
Bosnian Serb Refugee Minister Omer Brankovic.

A large number of Bosnia's displaced are elderly and have no income, so the government is planning to
build nursing homes to accommodate them as they would not be able to live on their own, he added.
Some 135,000 people have voiced their wish to return this year while the government estimates that some
500 million euros (705 million dollars) is needed to build apartments and ensure their sustainable return.
In 2006, the governments of Bosnia's two post-war entities -- Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat
Federation -- assigned a total of 4.6 million euros (6.5 million dollars) to the return of refugees.
The country's central government allocated 770,000 euros (1.1 million dollars) while the international
community donated four million euros (5.6 million dollars).

The figures seem rather modest as the budgets of the two entities and the central government amounted to
some 1.5 billion euros (2.1 billion dollars).

"This year the central government has allocated only 500,000 euros (705,330 dollars) for the refugees'
return, which will cover administration expenses only," head of the national association for refugees
Mirhunisa Zukic told AFP.

"It reflects how irresponsible the government is towards the issue," she said angrily.
The authorities, used to receiving billions of dollars of international donations in the past, should
understand that the responsibility is theirs to rebuild homes, rather than the international community,
Zukic stressed.

"Bosnia should understand more seriously that it took over the responsibility to solve the issue from
international organizations, the presence of which has dropped," she concluded.

Source:
Agence France Presse, 10/8/07 (page 8)