Mostar, BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA

As I entered the graveyard next to an old and weary mosque, I didn't notice anything unusual. Each grave has a different design, have lots of flowers, and are being well maintained. Also - all graves look fairly new. In fact, they are all exactly 14 years old. Most indicate birth dates around the 60's and 70's but all show year of death as 1993. This is Mostar and 1993 was the deadliest year in the pan-Balkan war.

During the Serbian aggression, the civil war killed more than 3,000 people in Mostar alone and another 1,500 people are still unaccounted for. After the UN and its forces proved once again total incompetence to stop this bitter war, NATO helped out. By the time of final "liberation" two mass graves were found with more than a hundred bodies of murdered civilians.

For more than 400 years the sandstone Stari Most bridge was considered an architectural marvel. Mimar Hajruddin, a pupil of the famous architect Sinan (considered as the father of classic Ottoman architecture), constructed the bridge in 1566. The city’s young men saw it as a rite of passage to jump off the bridge into the Neretva River below. However, during the civil war these young men who’d dived off the bridge together began to turn on each other. Serbians against Croats and Muslims, and Croats against Muslims. Croat soldiers destroyed the famous bridge at the height of shelling. It was rebuilt with the help of foreign money and reopened in 2004. Now that the (new) bridge has started to attract tourists, these boys (or the new generation) don't dive for sweets and clappy hands any longer! They want hard cash and most of the time just parade up and down the bridge hoping to solicit enough money from the tourists to make the jump.

Burnout and partly destroyed buildings are everywhere in town. This is still a very charming town with an ancient Ottoman residential area with cobbled stone paving and stately mansions. However, not a lot of reconstruction has taken place since the war, 14 years ago. Lots of homes, apartment buildings, government buildings, and places of worship still bear the scars of mortar shelling. You just cant help to wonder how these people could have lived through the war - and survived it.

This a brief summary of the devastation in Mostar:

All churches and almost all mosques were destroyed. The government, administrative and judicial buildings were either severely damaged or destroyed. The entire housing developments of the old city structure were brutally destroyed, while the new urban structure sustained severe damage. The industrial zone around the city was systematically destroyed, set on fire and looted. The entire infrastructure, communication and social networks were terribly damaged and/or destroyed. The entire city horticulture was devastated, the woods were burnt down, and the city parks turned into cemeteries.

I am staying with a lovely old lady and have a really nice room. However, the buildings obviously suffered greatly during the war and subsequently have been decorated all over with graffiti! Great atmosphere for two or three days here in Mostar