Word: rabija
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Dates: during 1996-1996
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...situation for the Oprhals was a second-floor apartment in a building halfway up a hill that gives a fine view of the city. Before the war they had everything they needed. "We were very satisfied," says Rabija, who worked as an administrator for the large electrical utility Energoinvest. "If we wanted to go anywhere, we had money for it. We would go skiing or on picnics every weekend." Kruno, who served as a director of technology at Energoinvest, says he turned down offers of high-paying jobs in Libya and Iraq because he and his family could not consider...
Despite months of war rumors, it came as a shock when the first explosions shattered Grbavica's peace on April 4, 1992. "Around noon the shooting started," says Rabija. "Alen was out, and we were afraid because we didn't know where he was." To her relief, he made his way back home through sporadic gunfire, and the Oprhals spent the next few days indoors, making and receiving telephone calls filled with worry and rumor. "Nobody knew what was going on," says Kruno. In fact, Bosnian Serb nationalists, backed by the Yugoslav army, were firing the first shots in their...
From those earliest days the Oprhals found Serb friends willing to take risks to help them. When Kruno and Rabija finally ventured out to buy food, they chose a time when a Serb acquaintance was doing duty as a guard at the Bridge of Brotherhood and Unity, leading into Sarajevo's center. He passed them through, no questions asked. "We spent our last money on cevapcici," says Kruno, referring to the spicy sausage that is a Bosnian specialty. "That," he says sadly, "was the last time I was in town...
...though, the looters returned and finished the job, pausing for swigs from the brandy bottle. The Oprhals were dismayed by how little the ifor patrols had done to protect the neighborhood in the previous week. They had roamed about, but rarely intervened directly. "All they had to do," said Rabija, "is show up two or three times a day and cock their weapons, and all the bandits would run away...
...afternoon of the 18th, two Serb friends from the neighborhood dropped by the Oprhals' to say goodbye. All the Serbs in their building except Mira had fled. That evening, she joined Kruno and Rabija in what, over the months, had become a nightly ritual of conversation and coffee around a small dining table. The Oprhals did not take part in the celebrations next day by returning Muslims outside. There was no joy in their diminished circle. Mira is now the one who faces an uncertain future, the one who needs protection. "Tomorrow is freedom for us, but Mira has nowhere...