European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 13, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Victims of Muslim women Wash pots and pans in a refugee Camp North of Sarajevo. Women i. Carry on by Susan Linnee the associated press they Are out at first Light walking to work carrying water cutting and hauling Wood and waiting in line in the Snow for  daughters Sisters grandmothers married divorced widowed or single. In fur Coats baggy trousers miniskirts or jeans. For the past nine months under serbian siege the thousands of women of Sarajevo in Bosnia Herzegovina have been fighting Many wars a to survive to heal to nurture to maintain their dignity. And sometimes to Kilt. Scores of refugees a mostly women and children a from towns occupied by the serbs huddle together inside a temporary shelter in Travnik Bosnia Herzegovina. In bitter Winter cold Sarajevo s 380,000 residents must struggle for survival in. A City without heat electricity or water and in Many cases without adequate shelter., Quot our Only Chance to survive is to live Normal lives to desire Normal things Quot said Sanja a a a a 27-year-old bosnian Muslim translator. She lives with her 22-year-old sister and a serb woman Friend in an apartment building that is hit daily by anti aircraft and automatic Rifle fire. Quot we try to put on our makeup every morning. To laugh at least once a Day. After nine months of living like this you can t be afraid of dying. But i am afraid of being wounded Quot Sanja said asking that her surname not be used because her parents remain in a serbian controlled neighbourhood. The adjustment is hard. 1 Quot in the beginning i was very angry. It was revolting. But i said to myself i just had to get used to the lowest level of life Quot said Jasmina Alibegovic 27, an intern in paediatric surgery at the City s main Hospital. Quot i used to Wash my hair every four Days. Now i am dirty. But the Best thing is that my Boyfriend is Safe in  after work she chops Wood gathers water and prepares a meal for herself and her elderly parents. Her 22-year-old brother is a conscript on the front lines. Quot when my brother is off duty he will help. But he s like All boys he has to be told. He does t see it As his work Quot she said. A Sarajevo woman gathers Wood for cooking and to Halo Ward off Winter s cold. Some women have chosen to fight Back joining the estimated 40,000-Strong bosnian army a special 74-woman combat unit serves on the front lines in the Hilts and suburbs around the City. A but in Many ways women have been the principal victims of this War that is being fought. For a confusing variety of political historical ethnic and religious reasons. Thousands of women and girls have been held in serbian detention Camps and raped. Many of them becoming pregnant with unwanted babies a few have found Refuge in besieged Sarajevo. Or. Sadi a Hadz Sehovic a 22-year Veteran of Kosovo Hospital s psychiatric clinic is preparing for More. A month ago she and her colleagues set up the league to Aid victims of mistreatment. Quot we specifically avoided the word rape because Many victims Are too ashamed to acknowledge what happened to them Quot she said. Quot one woman Here has just Given birth. She refuses to see the baby and her husband wants to kill her quo Quot we want men to come too Quot she added. Quot men have also been castrated and tortured and we want to help them Cope with this  for or. Sanja Beharovic the Only female a surgeon in Kosovo Hospital s emergency Ward coping Means Quot working like a machine so you done to think about existential things when you Are cutting off the leg of a 19-year-old  the Chain smoking 37-year-old serb whose late father was head of Kosovo s department of neurosurgery has deep circles under her intense Blue eyes. After 48 hours on the Job she walks Home to gather Wood water and food for herself and her 72-year-old Mother. Then she is Back at the Hospital to sleep a few hours before returning to mend flesh and Bones flayed by sniper fire and  even in War Beharovic says women face traditional chauvinism. Quot to be a woman in surgery has always been difficult. Even Here when t volunteered to stay t could see the looks of some men Quot she said Quot but maybe because most of the doctors Here Are so Young they accepted me and even agreed that i might be  a like Many serbs she chose to remain in Sarajevo a once a Model of ethnic tolerance a despite the siege by serb forces. Quot this is my town Quot Beharovic explained. Quot my father and Grandfather and great Grandfather were from Here. It was a special town with special people. Maybe it will be  we try to put on our makeup every morning. To laugh at least once a Day. A Sanja k. Bosnian woman Page 18 the stars and stripes wednesday january 13, 1993 a Quot Quot a a a. A not Borislav Horak a serbian Soldier has admitted to numerous rapes and murders during a five month period last year. Bosnian officials have indicted him on 29 murder charges. By Laura Pitter United press International sea 40, sits so tsp in a chair in an apartment in. Zagreb Croatia wringing her hands As if this could ease the pain of recalling her imprisonment with 2,000 other women in a Quot rape Camp Quot in serb controlled Eastern Bosnia Herzegovina. The serbs assaulted her town a she will riot give its i name or hers to prevent reprisals a in Early june. She and about 1,500 other townspeople most of them Muslim slavs were forced to make a human shield to prevent a Muslim counteroffensive. Quot we spent 36 hours straight on the front line Quot she says Quot it was horrifying. There were shells falling All around us and Many people died All around me Quot worse horrors were to come. Esma says the serbs took her to nearby Droboj and locked her up in a Quot rape Camp Quot at the Adjure Pecar stari school along with about 2,000 other women. They slept 40 to a classroom shared a few mattresses and were fed bits of bread and splashes of water. Those camped close to the classroom doors got All these meager provisions and the prisoners vied for this privileged position. And she says they were raped repeatedly systematically raped sometimes by former neighbors and acquaintances while their fellow inmates looked  done to know what kind of abuses i did t taste Quot she remembers her voice emotionless distracted As if to avoid the memory Quot if there was Only one Way left the most cruel one they would use  once she was beaten and forced to urinate on the Koran islam s holy Book for refusing to dance naked on a table for the entertainment of her captors. Quot they ripped off my clothes. They beat me Here and there Quot she says pointing Abstractedly to different parts of her body. Quot this was with the knife a a she says indicating a. Ragged scar above her left breast. The soldiers sometimes More than one at a time raped her and the other women repeatedly each Day sometimes with broken bottlenecks and Rifle barrels. Quot you Don t know whether it s going to shoot or not you die of fear you go mad Quot she says her voice still unnaturally level. Quot everything else becomes secondary and the raping was not so terrible any  the bosnian government women a groups and doctors All agree that Esma s is Only one Story of the War in. Bosnian Herzegovina which has displaced More than 2 million people creating Europe s worst refugee crisis since world War i. A a chilling aspect of these Camps is that rape appears to be a deliberate tactic in the serbs ethnic cleansing Campaign against the approximately 2.7 million Muslim slavs and croats in Bosnia Herzegovina which was the most ethnically diverse Republic of the former Yugoslavia no one doubts that serb women also Are being raped As bosnian territory changes hands in this bitter War. But Independent Relief groups agree that the rapes of serb. Women Are spontaneous. The serbian Quot rape Camps Quot appear to be deliberately organized. Quot the rapes Are part of a strategy to drive muslims and croats from their Homes Quot says Vera of Legovic a Zagreb psychologist who counsels rape victims. Quot ii instigates panic among the population when hundreds of women see that even one or two arc raped then they . The rapes also serve a second psychological purpose according to Asija Armanda who helps War displaced women in Zagreb. They Are not Only attacks on the women but also Are aimed at shaming Quot the women s husbands fathers and Brothers who failed to protect them Quot she says. Esma believes she was singled out pc Varouse Boca Uso her husband was the Leader of the Muslim party in her Village Irr Northern Bosnia near Droboj. Quot they had a list arid we were chosen according to those a they usually chose the educated distinguished intelligent types of people Quot she says. As the serbs were on the verge of entering her Village she says she and her husband braced themselves for the worst but they could not have anticipated what actually occurred. Serbian leaders in Bosnia Herzegovina deny allegations about the imprisonment and systematic rape of women. Bosnian serb Leader Radovan Karadzic told a dec. 23 news conference in Belgrade Quot the lies about organized raping of Muslim women in the prisons and elsewhere Are shameless groundless and beyond any criterion of human integrity Quot Quot we Challenge anybody in the world to prove the existence of a single prison for women or a single Case of organized raping or even the presence of a single civilian female in our prisons which were open 1o the inspection of the International agencies Quot to added. Despite his claims two other women interviewed independently confirm Esma s account of the Droboj rape Camp. They too say they were held in the Durkje Pecar Stan school and describe the same sequence of events with nearly identical dates of imprisonment and treatment Quot at night the local serbs would come. They would put ski masks Over their faces or cover them with Black paint and pick the women out Quot says Vasvija another Droboj rape Camp survivor Quot there was a constant Stream of such men coming. Through the door like at a Busy  she says angrily. Quot the women were like fruit at a fruit stand or livestock in a pen whoever the serbs wanted they could come in and pick one  a a. Cases like hers and that of other women at the school a could be just the evidence that Karadzic Calls for a and that the world needs to act. The stars and stripes a Page 19