Word: rabija
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WHEN A DETERMINED RAbija Osman Oprhal recently walked across a Sarajevo bridge from the ruined Serb-held neighborhood of Grbavica, a Bosnian soldier at a sandbagged checkpoint stared in astonishment at her identity documents. Hers is a Muslim name, and for more than three years Grbavica had been an "ethnically cleansed" stronghold of Serb extremism. "How is it that you have come from over there?" he asked. Rabija, 52, fixed the man with her gray-blue eyes. "I live there," she replied...
...Until Rabija and a tiny handful of other Muslims appeared out of the rubble in recent weeks, few had thought it possible that any of its once large Muslim population could have survived in Grbavica. During the long siege of Sarajevo, this modern metropolitan area had been a haunt of Serb bands like Vojislav Seselj's White Eagles and Zeljko ("Arkan") Raznatovic's Tigers, who used it as a base for snipers and mortar attacks on the government-held center. Muslims who failed to flee at the start of war in April 1992 found themselves trapped inside the enclave, facing...
...small apartment off Branka Surbata Street, however, they have never been divided. The story of Rabija Oprhal, her husband Kruno, 53, son Alen, 26, daughter Irma, 19, and their Serb friends provides heartbreaking evidence that a fraternal feeling between Muslims and Serbs survives. The family's experiences during the war and now in the midst of this vengeful peace prove that members of the two groups can live together and care for one another, even under the most dangerous circumstances. For the Oprhals were saved, they say, by their Serb neighbors and by sympathetic Serb soldiers. "They were nice. They...