Fikra Mahmutovic was 15 years old when she was captured with her mother, sister, and brother and taken to the “Susica” camp in Vlasenica in 1992. She managed to escape and return home to find food.
She spent 20 days in the “Susica” camp, separated from her family, surviving the murders of her friends Zlata and Azema.
”I survived the worst traumas there. I saw many things with my own eyes – how people were killed, how they died. I think Susica is the worst camp. Dragan Nikolic Jenki was there the most. He took women and girls out. He beat people. It was terrible, all the stress I experienced,” describes Fikra, who then, but also years later, did not know that her mother, brother, and sister had gone to Srebrenica, where they received information that she and her father had been killed.
Nikolic was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the Hague Tribunal in early 2005 after pleading guilty to participating in the murders, rape, and torture of Bosniak prisoners in the “Susica” camp in Vlasenica in 1992. After serving two-thirds of his sentence in 2013, he was released on parole and died five years later.
Fikra states that today many who committed crimes in Vlasenica while she was in the camp are free. She is disappointed by the lack of prosecution, while, she says, she and the other women had to and still often have to give statements that cause them to go through the trauma again.
How a greenhouse made a former camp prisoner stronger
”The Association “Snaga zene” (the Strength of a Woman) has its own greenhouses, and I also have a large greenhouse at home. I take care of this one here in the Association. I rest mentally on this beautiful land of ours,” Fikra explains and adds that she takes the products she grows in the Association to the Home for Children Without Parental Care.
”Believe me, with the help of the Association “Snaga zene”, I am happy today. Working on the land really helped me, because it somehow relaxes me mentally. When I come here, I rest and relax so nicely, I don’t think about anything,” says Fikra, who, selling products from the greenhouse, takes care of her two daughters and family.
Association “Snaga zene” Tuzla was established in 1999. For years, they have been successfully providing psychological, social, medical, legal, and economic assistance to women, adolescents, and children who have suffered various traumatic experiences as a result of the war and post-war events in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), with a special focus on victims of wartime sexual abuse.
Emina Dedic from Zvornik was captured in the camp in Karakaj in early 1992, as a twenty-year-old, with her daughter, son, mother-in-law, sister, and baby. For years after the war, because of the horrors she survived, she locked herself in the house. The doctors, she says, put her to sleep with pills, after which the traumas were worse.
”I heard about the Association “Snaga zene”. They told me that there are a lot of women there and that they hang out. At first, I was afraid, but when I came, everyone immediately accepted me – both Dr. Branka and her employees. Now, I’ve been coming for more than twelve years. Today I am a completely different person,” says Emina, who also started greenhouse production thanks to the greenhouse provided to her by this association.
The fight for children is stronger than trauma
Serifa Salihovic also produces fruits and vegetables in her house in Tuzla.
After the end of the war, she gave birth to her youngest son in 1996, and a year later she lost her husband. At the same time, it was the trigger for the difficult times she would go through.
”It was difficult. It was a big shock for me when he died. I had to somehow move on, and I didn’t have the strength. My oldest daughter was in the seventh grade, my son was seven months old, and all the children went to school. We lived in a small room. From that shock and fear of what to do next, I was constantly in the emergency room for four months. I see my children and fall unconscious,” Serifa recalls.
The Center for Social Work threatened to take away her children.
”I started working as a merchant, I brought goods to the market in Tuzla, I communicated with the people. I went to clean for women. I finish at the market and then I go to clean. I fought alone with my ten fingers. I cleaned staircases, and apartments, and ironed. I managed to provide my children with everything – they graduated from good schools, and passed their driver’s license. My son is in Austria, he recently got married. I raised five children who are a joy and an example, I would wish that for every mother,” Serifa says proudly, Detektor writes.
E.Dz.
