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by Lynne Hybels

Over a decade ago I traveled to Croatia and Bosnia during and then shortly after the war in the Balkans.  The stories of other wars that now fill the evening news prompted me to pull out this article I wrote in 1996.  If you would like more information about the impact of war on women, I suggest a powerful book by Zainab Salbi, The Other Side of War: Women’s Stories of Survival & Hope.   

Like most kids, the children of Maglaj, Bosnia trusted their parents to put food on the table.  They trusted their parents to keep them safe.  Above all, they trusted their parents to live forever. 

On all three counts, the trust of the children of Maglaj was broken during the war in the Balkans.  Many of them had food to eat only because of humanitarian aid.  Others suffered debilitating injuries.  Not a few lost their fathers to Serbian guns.  With their little town under constant shelling throughout the war, all these children could count on was one more day of grief and loss.

It is March 8, 1996.  I sit in a smoke-filled room in Maglaj with twenty-five Bosnian teachers and mental health workers, listening to an American expert in trauma and grief counseling.  As the Bosnian women describe the behaviors they see in the children, the counselor offers possible explanations.

“Their little bodies are trying to protect them from a repeat of what happened to them in the past,” he says.  “Aggressive behavior is a way of shouting ‘No!’ to the bombs they fear.  Nail-biting keeps their bodies alert, aware of what is going on around them.  Withdrawing allows them to hide from frightening possibilities.” 

It is so cold in this meeting room in Maglaj that I, and the four American women I’m traveling with, have not taken off our winter coats and gloves.  Despite our insulated hiking boots our toes are numb, as they have been throughout our stay in Bosnia.  The thick Turkish coffee we are served fights off the fatigue of jetlag, but does little to stave off the cold.

Despite the chill, however, our spirits are warmed by the commitment to children we have seen throughout Bosnia, and now see in this room.  These women love their children as we love ours, and both as mothers and as professionals they are determined to help them.  Almost desperately they seek the guidance of the therapist provided by World Vision, the relief and development organization with which I am traveling. 

A Bosnian language teacher tells us “the children write about nothing happy.  It’s like nothing beautiful has ever happened to them.”  The therapist says such essays, though tragic, provide a valuable outlet for the children’s honest feelings.  Far worse, he tells us, are the children whose silence and inattention at school reveals paralyzing fears: “It makes no sense to study, they seem to be saying, if I am just going to die.” 

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