Aid Memoir. Larry Hollingworth

UK Chief Medical Officer Sir Donald Acheson, then Head of WHO (World Health Organisation) for Former Yugoslavia, who kept himself warm wrapped in the WHO flag he had loyally and conveniently brought along with him. In the damaged APC, morale was kept high by Major Vanessa Lloyd Davies of the British Royal Army Medical Corps. The only casualty was Una Sekerez, the UNHCR translator with the convoy. Our translators could always be found at the front, fearless and faithful. Una received only cuts. Vanessa later received an MBE for Gallantry for this and other actions in Bosnia.

      We swung past the discarded APC axle, wheel, and other shrapnel and moved to the top of the mountain. We could just see Gorazde, way down in the distance. I was really excited. I still was not sure if we would make it. We could also see a strong Serb military post and behind it the remains of the ten-tonne truck from Fabrizio’s convoy which had hit a second mine as he had bravely attempted to continue the morning after the APC explosion. I anticipated trouble from the Serbs, they looked a wild bunch, but they gave me no hassle, and the media some excellent pictures. From their positions on the summit, the Serbs could see the whole panorama of the city of Gorazde. Their guns were trained on the strategic points. They could be in no doubt where their shells were landing. Tenement blocks, the hospital, gathering crowds were all clearly visible. It needed no military skill to land a shell in Gorazde. I was never present on either the hills around Sarajevo or Gorazde when Serb guns were fired. I would like to have seen the faces of those who fired. Did they celebrate, cheer? Did they smile, laugh, slap their thighs when their round landed? I suspect they did. Did any feel sick with sadness or shame? There was a story, which I was never able to prove but which I am sure is true, that busloads of Serbs motored from Belgrade to the outskirts of Gorazde to join the guns and to fire “their” round into Gorazde. Men whose number one sport was hunting swapped their quarry, from boar and bear to Muslims.

      The hilltop Serbs let us pass. We had one more checkpoint to go, this, halfway down the road into Gorazde. As we descended this road, you could touch, feel, our excitement. We could see Gorazde, so close, surely, we would reach her. We were stopped at the final checkpoint. The Serbs there were not sure we had approval to advance. We must wait for a military commander.

      He arrived, a small grey-haired man, aged about fifty. He confirmed that we had permission but warned me that ahead lay no man’s land. He was certain the Muslims had laid mines. Were we certain they were expecting us? They may attack us. He, like his senior counterpart in Rogatica, gave us approval to pass, but at our own risk. We passed his barrier and moved towards our goal. The road was deserted. Bricks, stones, fallen branches littered it. Ahead of me was one APC, then Eric’s vehicle. Behind me, the press and the convoy. The first wave of excitement was when we saw the road sign “Gorazde.” It was scarred with bullets, but it meant we were there. Just after the sign was a gentle bend to the left, as we came out of it the rooftops of a whole Gorazde street were on our right. Many of the houses were destroyed. There was no sign of life.

      I halted the convoy. Eric stopped his vehicle and came over to me.

      – Eric, I think you and I should walk in on our own from here.

      – My view, exactly—replied Eric. We set off together. The APC and the convoy, including journalists, halted. God we were excited! It was a mixture of achievement, expectation, and joy. We walked down the hill, on our right there were some large buildings.

      – It seems deserted, Eric.

      – I think there is some movement in the basement—he said very quietly. At the bottom of the hill there was a crossroad. There had been traffic lights and streetlamps, but the posts and the wiring hung awry. The shops on the corner were windowless, glass strewn everywhere. We turned right towards where we thought the centre of town may be. We were still alone, but now we were walking along a pavement, and the buildings were within touching distance. There are people looking out of balcony windows—said Eric.

      Feeling foolish, I shouted in Serbo Croat the only words that I knew.

      – Visoko Kommissariat. United Nations!

      A man appeared. He was in his fifties, plump, jolly and very emotional. He embraced Eric and myself. People now appeared in doorways, mainly women and children. Then balconies filled. The man told us that he was to take us and the convoy to the centre of the town. Eric and I turned to return to the convoy. The journalists were on our tail, cameras thrusting, pencils gliding over notebooks. A wave of the arm was all that was needed for the convoy to move. As it entered the town, people appeared from everywhere, they clapped and cheered and wept and sobbed and hugged us. They placed flowers on the vehicles. We, to a man, were overwhelmed. At the centre of the town we were met by the man responsible for receiving the aid. The centre was a carpet of broken glass. The people of Gorazde could not risk their lives sweeping it up. Your feet crunched as you walked about on it. Part of the aid was to go to the basement of a building in the centre. A chain of men was organised to unload those vehicles which carried baby food. Two more locations were decided upon. They wanted the food dispersed, as they were convinced that the Serbs would watch where we unloaded it and then shell there. They were later proved right. The mayor wanted to see us, and we wanted to see the hospital and deliver the medicines we had brought.

      Dragon, my driver, who, as a Serb, had been really afraid about entering Gorazde, had been recognised by old University friends, smothered in kisses, cuddled, presented with flowers, now confident enough to lead, on his own, one of the groups of vehicles to be unloaded. Eric and I went together to the Mayor. His office was hidden in the back streets of the city. In an area comparatively hard to shell. We were led there running across notorious sniper locations. It was a dingy, dark office. For our benefit, the room was lit by a tiny bulb powered by a car battery. Eric handed out the cigarettes. Eyes glowed, there was a clamour to get one. That day I was to learn that if the first convoy into a besieged town only carried cigarettes, it would be welcomed. They were desperate for a cigarette made from tobacco. They had their own made from leaves and rolled in newspaper.

      The mayor, Hadzo Efendic, I was eventually to know well. After the tragic death of Mr. Tureljevic, he was to become Vice President of Bosnia. He welcomed us. Told us the story of the city: the deaths, the deprivations, the despair. He was straight and blunt. He asked why we had taken so long to come to their rescue. When did we anticipate we would be back? I left the diplomatic Eric who patiently and sympathetically explained the limitations of the United Nations troops in Bosnia.

      I left for the hospital.

      Soon after our arrival, the Serbs had dropped three mortar shells into Gorazde. In fairness to their promise, they had landed them on the far side of the river, well away from us. They missed us, but they did kill and maim some citizens of Gorazde. As we arrived at the hospital while they were being brought in. One victim was a three-year-old girl, her mother was killed outright. The little girl had multiple shrapnel wounds.

      I arrived at the same time as Jeremy Bowen of the BBC. We entered the “casualty” department. The hospital had no electricity, the room was dark. The surgeon, Alija Begovic, was digging the shards of metal out of the body of the writhing child, there was no anaesthetic. The small amount we had brought was not yet unloaded. The girl’s screams were piercing. Sounds etched on my memory’s tape recorder, later to be heard at unguarded moments. The surgeon saw the TV cameraman whose camera had a light attached to it. He called him over, he needed the light to work by, to locate the slivers from where the child was bleeding. We watched as the cameraman closed in on the girl who nurses were holding down.

      We, outsiders, were stunned and silent. The Gorazde hospital staff had seen it and done it so many times before. They were able to accept that this was Gorazde in 1992. To me, it was a scene from centuries ago. It was not caused by earthquake or accident. This orphaned child lay bleeding and screaming because some man had fired a mortar bomb into the heart of a city. As we left the room where the girl lay, we passed the other mortar victims waiting for treatment. My heart went out to them. To sit outside a room, to hear that screaming, to know that your turn is next.

      I went off to the third location to see how the unloading was going. It wasn’t. Or, at best, it was going very slowly. I started to get angry. I want this truck unloaded now. I’ll give you thirty minutes to unload it or I’ll take it back—I