Haunted Still

Mostar, Bosnia

Sept 6, 2025

With the collapse of Yugoslavia, this part of the world was engulfed in war and Bosnia and Herzegovina was no exception. It was soon after the nation declared independence in 1992 that it saw ethnic violence of a level unseen on the world stage since WWII.

In a country with three main ethnicities, the initial conflict in 1992 was between the joint forces of the Bosniaks and Croats on one side and Bosnian Serbs, supported by Serbia on the other. By 1993 though there were increasing tensions between the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, resulting in Bosniaks fighting both the Serbs and the Croats. In a land where all had lived as neighbors, friends, colleagues and married into each other’s families, there was suddenly a sharp division. It was a hell made of betrayal and bloodshed. International intervention led by NATO and an agreement for cease-fire negotiated at Dayton, Ohio in 1995 was when it ended.

Mostar was a pile of rubble; it may have a new shiny face but it bears scars aplenty. There are bombed out buildings on almost every street while others are replaced by brand new buildings. Many others are still pock-marked with bullet holes but there is light in the windows and potted plants in the balconies. People live in these buildings.

I learned of the war here from a man who had lived through it. I have changed his name in this story but all else is just as he told me. Luka, as I shall call him, was barely seventeen when the war started and nineteen when it ended. In an intensely personal account, he spoke of seeing his best friend die from a bomb and collecting his body parts in a plastic bag. He spoke of the siege of Mostar when for nine months they hid, venturing out to fetch water from the river and hunting for food under the cover of darkness, dodging sniper bullets. He has seen half of his school friends die and has had shrapnel dug out of himself. He still has the bullet that was dug out of his leg.

The tall building called the Sniper Tower still stands. It is an abandoned building now standing at a traffic circle near the Spanish Square. The long straight main road we are on, he says used to be the no man’s land.

There is a tall Peace Tower now, but that road may as well be no man’s land still. This is a town that is sharply divided. The Bosnian Croats live on the west part of town and the Bosniaks in the east. There are separate schools that each send their children to. And most do not even venture into the other side unless it is a dire need. There is however one college which students from both sides attend. Maybe it is a starting point?

I spent most of my time in the east Mostar, that being where the old town was. But I took myself for a walk in the western part. It feels different. There are bombed out buildings here too but fewer it seems to me.