Volunteers from around Europe help rebuild war-torn Srebrenica

International youth camp, now in its second year, does work no one else wants to do

Young volunteers from Europe and Bosnia help clear away earth from a medieval fortress above the town of Srebrenica. The volunteers want to help the people of the community to return to normality.

SREBRENICA (Reuters) – Francesco Baroni runs up and down a dusty hill above the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, pushing wheelbarrows full of earth. Baroni is an Italian volunteer from a group of 70 young men and women who joined an international youth camp in the town synonymous with the 1995 massacre of up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by the Bosnian-Serb army.

The camp is operating in Srebrenica for the second year, assisting the war-wearied community with work that nobody else wants to do, a prime example of “voluntourism.” “You do practical things to help people here – cutting wood for winter, improving roads in the woods to some remote houses,” Baroni said during a short break from his unpaid toiling.

Most of the volunteers here come from France and Italy where they studied about the Bosnian war and the plight of Srebrenica. They say they want to learn more about the postwar zone and show people here they have not been forgotten.

On a hot August day, the group is clearing earth from a medieval fortress above the town to prepare it for restoration. Srebrenica, known for its silver mines since the Middle Ages, translates as “Silvertown.” “It will be a great tourist site,” enthuses Caroline, 24, a volunteer from France.

The Srebrenica massacre – considered Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two – took place over several days in July just months before the US-brokered Dayton peace accords ended the 1992-1995 war.

A shrunken, impoverished population of 7,000 remains, with Muslims and Serbs viewing each other with deep distrust. The ghostly town is packed with people only on the massacre’s anniversary, when families come to bury remains that are still being recovered and to commemorate the victims. But life must go on for those actually trying to survive in Srebrenica despite all the hardships and tragic past.

“People are very welcoming. They talk about the war easily. They don’t know why it happened. They want life to go on,” said Caroline, who studies international law.

A jumble of burned-out buildings and empty streets just a few years ago, Srebrenica is slowly coming back to life. New and rebuilt houses replace the ruins of last decade and more children are playing in the streets.

The local government and international donors have promised millions of euros this year for the recovery of the town, which to the dismay of Muslims now lies in territory ceded to Bosnia’s Serb Republic after the war. But many people, like Muslim returnee Aisa Omerovic, are still waiting for those pledges to take hold. Since her husband was killed in the war and her children left for a better life in Germany, she now lives alone in her house near Srebrenica and, like many other women here who lost sons and husbands in the war, will take any help she can get. “I am thankful to them as I would be to my own children,” Omerovic said of volunteers who dug a channel along the road to divert rainwater that would flood her house. “People here would not help with this work even if I paid them.” Most young Bosnians are not interested in labors toward solidarity contrary to the tradition of youth workers common in the former Yugoslav federation, when their parents built highways, railways and dams. But not everyone at the youth camp is a foreigner. “Sadly it is easier to recruit foreigners for this kind of work,” acknowledged Mirza Efendic, a volunteer from the central Bosnian town of Doboj. “My friends laugh at me because I work here for free.”

Adnan Grbic from the northern town of Tuzla said he enjoyed the hard work because of the other young people he has met. “I came for 10 days but now I’ll stay until the end of the camp,” Grbic said with a wide smile.

Srebrenica Mayor Abdurahman Malkic said it was important for young people to overcome the barriers imposed on them after the war. “Any kind of socializing in Srebrenica is welcome, especially when young people are given a chance to meet and set aside prejudices they inherited from their parents,” he said. Malkic was speaking as fans gathered for a weekend hip-hop festival that brought in popular acts from all parts of the former Yugoslavia to perform for the first time in Srebrenica. “Something tragic happened here and it should be overcome in any way imaginable,” said Belgrade hip-hopper Marko Selic, alias Marchello, while signing autographs for excited teenagers.