Jasin Najrof, a sixteen-year-old from Palestine, currently resides in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) where he volunteers and helps the mothers of the victims of the Srebrenica genocide in performing their daily tasks. He also participates in the works on the completion of the home for the elderly and the infirmary in Potocari near Srebrenica, near the Memorial Center.
Najrof told Radio Free Europe (RSE) that the Srebrenica tragedy, which happened in July 1995, motivated him to come to Srebrenica and volunteer.
“My father has an organization that cooperates with organizations from BiH and he found an invitation to this camp. Then I did a little research and found information about Srebrenica and how genocide was committed here, that more than 8,000 people were killed here, and then somehow, carried away by it, I decided to come here,” Najrof told.
A young Palestinian man is staying in Srebrenica with about 70 other volunteers in an international youth work camp, a project of the International Solidarity Forum “Emmaus”.
One of the goals of the project is to help elderly people in the area of Srebrenica and Bratunac.
Volunteers come from BiH, Serbia, Turkey, Romania, France, England, Jordan and the United States (U.S.).
One of the important activities for volunteers is participation in the project “Love for the mothers of Srebrenica”, in which a group visits the mothers every day and helps them with their daily tasks.
For twenty-one-year-old Eldina Osmanovic from Sarajevo, originally from Srebrenica, hanging out with one of the Srebrenica mothers was a particularly moving experience.
“I am here for the first time at the camp. After such a visit, while spending time with mother Rahima (Celebic), I was really shocked. It is true that I am originally from Srebrenica and that I had the opportunity to visit many families and many situations, but somehow this touched me and I’m really glad that I’m part of a project like this, that I can at least help in some way,” says Osmanovic.
Seventy-five-year-old Raza Garaljevic is also a beneficiary of the project. She returned to Srebrenica 20 years ago. She tells that she lives alone, cultivates the property and that she is happy for anyone who comes to visit her.
“It’s hard to live alone. You can’t wait for someone to open the door for you, or to go out somewhere if you have someone to visit. The people have isolated, hardly anyone goes to visit other people. I was close with my neighbor. We always drank coffee. If it snows in the morning, winter, we go inside, and if it is like this, we go outside, anywhere…I miss my neighbor, I miss her a lot. I miss my neighborhood, my family, there are few people. And these people who are here now, everyone has its own obligations,” says Garaljevic.
“The idea of the camp is for young people to gather in one place in order to work, socialize, help the local population, help in our humanitarian projects, without any barriers, regardless of religious and national affiliation, that young people hang out in one place, in this place and build a better common future. So, our constant goal is, in fact, the promotion of tolerance and coexistence for everyone,” noted Mirela Ahmedbegovic, manager of the Emmaus youth camp, RFE writes.
E.Dz.
