Krajina Identification Project: finding the missing

Today we walked the 2 kilometres (although the walk felt longer) to the International Commission on Missing Persons site in Sanski Most where the Krajina Identification Project is run by Senior Forensic Anthropologist Senem Skulj and one osterologist.  After entering the building, the long, hot walk didn't seem so bad. The purpose of the Krajina Identification Project for the last ten years has been to re-associate and identify the remains of victims exgavated from mass graves around Bosnia.

The process is neither easy nor short. It begins with excavation. Excavation is done by a team of investigators who look for mass graves through interviews, hearsay, and local sightings of bones. In many cases, perpetrators report the location of a mass grave. Whether the confession is out of guilt or responsibility, nobody knows.  In other cases the investigation team must bribe or pay to get the location of mass graves because they are "hidden crimes" Senem said, serious crimes against civilians that perpetrators never want any one to see. The perpetrators went to great lengths in some cases to ensure that the graves were not discovered. For instance, there may have been witnesses to the first mass grave, so the perpetrators would excavate the bodies and move then to a second grave, and maybe even to a third so the remains are not only hidden but also scattered accross the country. Once excavation begins, the investigators bring the remains in bags to the Centar.  From there, Senem's work begins.

First, the bones are washed and separated out, along with any belongings that accompied the remains. The bones are then organized into groups by age, sex and bone type. According to Senem, the bones of one body in many cases come from multiple mass graves, making the process of associating the bones into a skeleton extensive. Of course, the construction of an entire skeleton is unlikely.

From the bones, the staff can construct a biological profile including any trauma that is evident from the features on the bones, including possible past injuries or potential causes of death. "Associating" the bones is a process of trial and error in some cases, but relies heavily on DNA sampling and testing. The most basic of assocations could be the simple comparisons of pairs of bones like the femur of the legs. However, DNA sampling is the most reliable form of testing the bones for association to complete a skeleton, identify the remains and connect the remains to surviving family.

DNA samples are extrapolated from the bones and sent to the DNA labs in Sarajevo for analysis and to cross analyze with any DNA samples taken from surviving family members (antemortum and postmortum comparisons). The data gathered from the samples and the families that report missing persons and give DNA are stored in a centralized database that networks the information in Sanski Most to the center for missing persons in Tuzla as well as all of the Former Yugoslavia. With this database the DNA samples from each bone can be connected with other samples that match it and finally re-associate bones.

A mass grave is any site that has more than two persons, according to the anthropologists. So far, the Krajina Identification project has identified 3,000 persons and 70% have been in mass graves. There are many families who have yet to give DNA samples for identification or even accept that their loved one may be dead. Some believe that their relative is still being held in a Serbian concentration camp or they do not want to assocate themselves with the identified because the remains were found with a Serbian Army uniform. Senem said there are even instances where the Center has identified Serbian soldiers and the family denies that the "other side" or Muslims could find their son or identify him. They think it is a trick, a lure to trap them in Bosnia or to give the family the wrong body. Skepticism is present on both sides as many mothers refuse to face the death of their son.

The Center for Missing Persons is UN-funded, and has been for ten years. These projects are implemented to find and identify missing persons, but also to become projects that the local community can sustain and operate, rather than the international community. As economic forces come to play, the international presence in Bosnia continues to dwindle, and Senem loses fellow osterologists and case workers to other projects or to the tight pockets of the local community. Senem is not sure what she will do next: whether her continuing career as a forensic anthropologist leads her to other projects with the UN or otherwise, she most likely would not stay in Bosnia. Even if she wants to see the project through, her profession is not recognized in Bosnia-Herzegovina and keeps her from a legitimate career outside of UN employment in Bosnia. Hopefully excavation and identification will be complete before funds run out.

Krajina Tear

Udruženje Krajiška Suza (or “Krajina Tear”), a local organization in Sanski Most, is perhaps the most underfunded community outreach program I have ever witnessed. 

We arrived at their headquarters mid-morning today and toured the small, two-story building.  The space has been split into a variety of office and meeting rooms, where we met and talked with various staff members about the mission and struggles of the organization.  Krajina Tear supports seven full-time staff, who were trained by a German psychotherapist to provide psychological support and healthcare to low-income war survivors in and around Sanski Most.  The center’s staff and 35 volunteers, all war widows themselves, provide services to more than 400 client members within a 20-mile radius.  But international funding has dropped to 40 percent of its former levels, causing a drastic cut in services.  Now, the center is funded by one Swiss church, whose support will dry up in two years.

On its shrinking budget, Krajina Tear offers a free clinic, home visits for psychological counseling and healthcare provision, a social center and support group for the elderly, and workshops on peacebuilding, reconciliation, and foreign languages.  The building’s top floor has been converted into a room for preschoolers with special needs, for whom there are currently no services in Sanski Most.  Complete with colorful carpet and bright pictures on the walls, but lacking funding, the room sits empty.

Downstairs, a similarly grim situation confronts the women who work for Krajina Tear.  In the free clinic, one doctor, one nurse, and one psychotherapist see daily walk-ins facing a variety of health problems.  Their small crew also provides in-home services for elderly patients confined to their houses or living in remote villages.  Most of the patients cannot afford basic hospital services and depend entirely on the healthcare provided by Krajina Tear.  Over 90 percent of the center’s 200 elderly clients depend entirely on the center’s free provision of their prescription drugs (which are not provided for Krajina Tear by the government; they must be purchased privately).  In addition, despite the traumas of war which have affected the entire area, there are no private psychologists in all of Sanski Most.  The hospital is inadequate for the needs of the community—the two rooms that hold its “psychiatric wing” are staffed only twice a week by a doctor from Prijedor.  Thus, the few trained therapists of Krajina Tear bear the burden of an entire community’s wounds of war, fighting with the stigmas of mental illness, small-town social pressures, and their own personal histories. 

In the early afternoon we accompanied one of the workers on a site visit across town.  In a big white van, we drove across Sanski Most to a neighborhood on the city’s outskirts.  As we piled out of the van and filed through the gate to the yard, we were greeted enthusiastically by an older man, whose friendly grin and eager hand-pumping clearly indicated his anticipation of our visit.  Leaving our shoes at the door, we entered the living room and greeted his wife and two young grandsons, who were sitting on the couch waiting.  The woman from Krajina Tear visits this family twice every week to check on them; as we sat and talked for half an hour, we quickly discovered why.

Stories of war surface quickly from people here.  Mere minutes into our conversation, our jovial host had hiked up his pant leg to show us the gangrene that had infected his leg, blackening and leathering the skin all the way up his shin.  He was stabbed 13 times during the war, including on his feet, and the scars and infections trouble him.  But he was quick to add that he was grateful just to be alive.  He knew many people with a different story.

The war has taken a toll in a different way on his wife.  Now crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, she sat and cried and talked of suicide, telling us that without her grandsons she would certainly be dead by now.  Those in our group who spoke Bosnian were quick to jump in and comfort her, but her battle with depression is a daily one, exacerbated by a lack of adequate psychiatric or medical care.  As the doctor at Krajina Tear told us, antidepressants are no longer on the government’s list of necessary medications, and thus are not provided.  For this woman, who (along with her husband and two grandsons) depends on her daughter’s salary of 200 marks a month, such expensive medication is out of the question.  Instead, she relies on a bottle of Tylenol that expired in 2003 and a motley assortment of herbal remedies prescribed by the pharmacist.  Nothing in her jam-packed pink shoebox of drugs actually suited her mental or psychological ailments.

The work of Krajina Tear is heartbreaking.  Inspiring, but heartbreaking.  The turnover rate for the center’s volunteers is high, and understandably so: with such enormous problems, and so few resources, it is a daily battle to improve the living conditions of women, the elderly, and children affected by war and poverty.  The center is desperately in need of money—it was their greatest and most simple request.  Members of our delegation will be spending the next two days working on grants for the organization, but this post is also a plea: become involved in the reconstruction efforts and the human rights work being done in Bosnia.  The challenges are great—there is a long way to go—but with the faithful work of people like the women of Krajina Tear and with the support of others, progress can be made.

Contact information for Krajina Tear:

k.suza@bih.net.ba

Contact person: Almira Selimović

Udruženje Krajiška Suza

Vahidbegova b.b.

Sanski Most, Bosnia

Welcome!

Welcome to the novice blog for Global Youth Connect's 2010 summer delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina.  We will post something more profound another day.  Right now, there's a World Cup game demanding our attention.