And then after the year the war began in Bosnia and we lived in a house, we had a house, but when the war started, we had to move to the other house cause you needed to have a big basement where you can hide. The better basement that you have, the better thing you can have. So we had to move to the other house because that house had a basement all underground, we had like a small window that looked outside and that was all that we had lights in that basement. We didn’t have electricity, we didn’t have water, we didn’t have gas. My parents, they had to walk for like two or three hours to get water to have something to drink.

In 1993, that was the worst year when actually war happened. A lot of fighting that year was, there was the planes all over Bosnia, they dropped the bombs. Sarajevo is actually a town that’s surrounded by the mountains and Serbian army were all over the mountains, [we] were inside trapped, we couldn’t go anywhere. They could see the whole town, they could see everything. Then they dropped the bombs wherever. They didn't look if that was like a building with government or if it was a building where people, innocent people lived. They just dropped the bombs wherever.

The war was like for four years and we lived like underground for two years. We couldn’t go outside. We lived with my aunt and my uncle and their three children, so little. We had to live with them because that was the house my uncle found. The Serbian house. When the war started, the Serbian people who lived in Sarajevo, they run away because there was a lot of Muslims who lived there and so they were afraid. So there was 9 of us who lived in that little basement, there was one room, we had beds, we didn’t have water, nothing. For all day we were trapped downstairs, we didn’t have lights, just one small window. It was actually from other side we could break for something like that, when the bombs dropped or something, when a bullet came in.

We were trapped downstairs, we could go up. We had a little TV that didn’t work on electricity, it worked on, like in a car, you have that thing that runs the car and then you take that out… a generator…and then you can take that out and watch the TV and actually you have to connect that with a bike and then you have to pedal that you can watch the TV. That was the whole thing we had. And then you can watch TV and if you stop the pedal, the TV stops. Sometimes my father, then my uncle, we had a list. I’m kidding. Then we used to do that just when the news had to start, cause it can start working if you use it a lot and then only for like five minutes we can hear the news if they’re gonna bomb or if they’re gonna attack. They usually knew the time when they’re gonna bomb. So if you hear on the news that they’re not gonna bomb that day, we can get out for a little bit to go play or get the fresh air. That was the only time we could get out.

Then my father and my uncle they had to go in army, they had to defend the town. Even if you didn’t want to do that, go and kill somebody, you had to do that. Usually people who go, like, to those hills, those mountains where they Serbian people are. We lived really near to them, over the hill were Serbian people. And still in Sarajevo there is a part where Serbian people live. And for three years, we couldn’t go over there. They called that part Serbian Sarajevo. Now we can go there. I went, but I was scared. I was really scared. I just went with a car and I was really scared. My father and my uncle every night they had to go up there. They had holes in the ground where people hid, trenches. And they spent like whole night over there. And if there is a bombing during the day, they call them, they had to go. And of course we couldn’t use the phone, they cut the lines so somebody had to come over and say, ‘we need you, you have to go.’

So we usually in that little basement there was my mom my aunt and the children and we had to cook, but we had to go to pick the woods, we had to cook with that, we didn’t have electricity. We had to go to a lot of different places to get water. That’s 1993, that was the worst year of fighting. Then the year after that, things get a little…we could go out, but still there was fighting, there was bombing.

Then we started school, because that year we couldn’t go to school, so we started school, but we didn’t go to regular school because we couldn’t, it was too far and parents wouldn’t let their children go that far when the bombing was still there. Then in every, like, four blocks, there was one small basement where children could go to school and one teacher and then you can go to school. It wasn’t like real school, but we had to go if you didn’t want to lose like three or four years.

Then we went to school. Dino actually started his first year of school during the war. He started the first year of school during the war and I finished one year when the war started. We had one teacher and she teaches everything. She teaches math, everything, science, so we didn’t have that much teachers. It was a really small room and a lot of kids. There was one table and like five other peoples around. There was one day that we were in school and the bombing started and we all had to go home, we were running and my mom she was really scared and when she saw us, she was crying because the bombing was there and everything. So most of the time we didn’t go to school. Because of all the bombing. When there is no bombing, we go to school for like two days then we don’t go for like three or four days. I finished three grades, second, third and half of the fourth grade during the war. Then after the war, we started going to the regular school, even though after the war everything was ruined so everything was really low.

Raeshma: Where did you go after the war. You were in the basement; did you stay there?

Aida: No, we didn’t stay there. We stayed there for maybe like a year and half, maybe two. And then we moved to another house cause we didn’t have our own house, we were like paying the rent staying at someone else’s house. Then we moved to another Serbian house, there was a lot of Serbian people who lived in Sarajevo they ran away when the war started because they were afraid. A lot of them, when they left, the people who were searching their houses, they found a lot of weapons in their houses like bombs or all that stuff, the weapons they found in those houses then they ran away, they were afraid. Then we move to another Serbian house and the rest of the war we lived there and after the war we lived there for like five years.

We moved there, but we were still kinda in a basement, we were still afraid, the war was still going on, we just wanted to find a basement, everyone was looking for a basement. People were leaving their own houses to go and find a basement. People were afraid. The deeper you were underground, the better, you not gonna get killed or something like that. Because they were dropping the bombs all over Sarajevo, they didn’t look for government people or president’s house or important buildings, they were dropping the bombs wherever, whatever. There was a bomb that hit the basement we were in; a bomb hit that house. A whole one wall collapsed, but we were in the basement and luckily nothing happened to us. The bomb hits underground and nothing happened, nobody get hurt. That was luck. Really lucky. Nobody died. When we moved to that house, the bombs dropped all over but luckily nothing happened to like my mother my father.

My whole family in Sarajevo, there was only my aunt and uncle, the rest of my family was spread all over Bosnia. My grandmother, she lived in Bijeljina and that was the land that Serbian people owned and the whole war, she lived with Serbian people. That was north of Bosnia and there wasn’t fighting over there, they just, they lived with the Serbians, they didn’t have any rights, they were like slaves. The Serbian people, they lived in my grandmother’s house and she lived in one room, they gave her one room and they took everything else, the whole house. At the end of the war, she came in Sarajevo to live with us. And my father’s brother, my uncle, they lived east of Bosnia and he got killed, he was killed and his son, my cousin. They were fighting and then the bomb dropped and they were killed. None of my family was in Sarajevo with us, we were like all by ourselves with my aunt and my uncle and then after the war my grandma came and then my uncle’s wife came; my aunt came to Sarajevo. A lot of people came to Sarajevo after the war because the Serbian people took a lot of land so they had to go somewhere and most of the people came to Sarajevo because it was like the capital city, it was the big city, so everyone came there.

Before the war, there was a country that was called Yugoslavia and then there was a country that had six other countries together that was Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Serbia and Montenegro. Then after the war everything get separated then the Serbian people wanted to make a great Serbia. They wanted to take over the Bosnian land and the Croatian land to make a great Serbia. And then there was a little bit religion. All the Serbian people, they’re Catholics and most of the people in Bosnia, they’re Muslims. So it was a little bit about religion and a little bit about land. So they were the next country next to Bosnia, Serbia who wanted the war, so it’s kinda complicated, all those countries.

Loulou: Were you ever confronted by the Serbians for any reason? Like did a Serbian kid ever attack you just because you were from Bosnia?

Aida: No, cause in Sarajevo where we lived, we didn’t have any contact to the Serbian people. There were some Christians, Serbians, who lived in Bosnia before the war and some of them run away and some stayed there. And those who stayed there, they were fair with us, they stayed with us, they weren’t afraid of us because they didn’t do anything wrong. And those who did do something wrong, who had like weapons in their house, they all ran away. So the Serbian people who stayed there, they were very fair with us and we were very fair with them, so we didn’t have any like fights or conflicts between. The Serbian people, I didn’t have any contact with them, because in Sarajevo we didn’t actually… but after the war of course, now everything is like before. Serbian people go to Bosnia, Bosnian people go to Serbia, still there is something, I don’t know. They go in each other’s country, but still there’s something about the war that keeps them apart.

Loulou: Your cousin and your uncle, were they in the army? How did they get killed? Were they involved?

Aida: They were in the army because if you are 18 or older you had to go to the army. Because before the war, we didn’t have an army like here in the United States you wanna go to army, you go to army or navy or marines or something like that, we didn’t have that before. But when the war started, we needed army to protect ourselves, we needed weapons which we didn’t have, we needed army, which we didn’t have. So everybody who was 18 or older had to go in army to defend ourselves because we were attacked already. So they formed the army, and we needed a weapon, we didn’t have a weapon. Because the Serbian people, they got the weapons and then started the war because they had planned that. But we didn’t know that, we didn’t have weapons. So some people, like my neighbor, he made guns by his hands, I don’t know how he do that, but the real gun, he made it. So we did a lot of things, we made them, the things that we found in the Serbian apartments, we took that because we needed the weapons. So my uncle and my cousin… my cousin, he was really young, I think 18 or 19 and he had just gotten married. He didn’t even see his son. He died and then his wife had a son. You had to go, you were forced because we didn’t have real army, so not a lot of people would volunteer to go and kill themselves, so we were forced [the men had to go.] There were people who didn’t want to go for any reason, but you had to go, we needed army, we needed to defend ourselves, we were forced.

Raeshma: You guys know what a siege is? That city, Sarajevo was under siege. It’s rimmed by mountains so there was really no way out. So the city was surrounded, so this was going one for four years.

Aida: When the war started, in the beginning, you could get out, but you had to pay a really big money to get out, but the people who were allowed to go out were just women and children, no men. Men couldn’t go out because they needed army so if the men run away, who’s gonna defend Bosnia?

Sebene: How did they get out?

Aida: Some of them did, some of them didn’t. Because my father, he wanted to send us out. You go by buses; you of course have to pay a lot of money for that. You go by buses to Croatia and they have some way, you know, you pay a lot and they pay, they let women and children go but no men. If they found a man on a bus, they’d get him back. So they get them to Croatia and then from Croatia, you can go wherever you want. A lot of people went to Germany. A lot of people are in Germany still. Now Germany started to send them back to Bosnia. Germany, Sweden, they were in a lot of European countries. Then from Germany, they went to United States, also Australia. So to Croatia, then from Croatia, you could go wherever you want. But no men were allowed to.

Mohamed: How did they bomb in the building and you stay alive?

Aida: Because we were underground, we were in a basement and all around us was the ground. The bomb hits in the first floor of the house and we were in the basement. When we make houses, it’s much more stronger than here.

Aida (other): Like what happened with twin towers, that never happen in Bosnia. I know plane never hit the building, but-

Mohamed: Because if bomb fall down in your house, it's gonna dig into the hole.

Aida: But it didn’t hit like this, it hit like this. [gesturing] They usually dropped the bomb from the planes.

Mohamed: When then bomb come, it whistles, it lets you know ‘I’m coming’

Aida: Yeah, that’s the thing, you always know when it’s gonna hit, it always whistles and it hits.
Raeshma: I remember when Mohamed told his story and he said that [made the noise of a whistling bomb], you guys looked at each other.

Aida: When he was going that, he was whistling and it looked so real when he did that. Everybody’s running because you know it’s coming.

Aida (other): And if you are in the middle of the street, you just run because you don’t know what to do.

Aida: Yeah, I mean we had, because that’s not a big city, Sarajevo, like New York, it’s capital city, but it’s not that big. Even Bosnia, it’s not that big. Sarajevo is small and, like I said, the mountains are around it. So they can see everything down there, they can see like this. So the people had to get out to get the water, the food. Even if you had a lot of money, even if you had millions, you didn’t have anything. You couldn’t buy anything. You didn’t have stores, well, you had the stores but you didn’t have anything in them, you didn’t have food. There were planes who came like every month and bring us food, so you go and get that food. And for the water, you had to go wherever you know there was water. There were lines, very big lines just for like a gallon of water so you have something to drink.

We had to do something for the people that can’t walk around the streets. We had trains there like the subway here but they were small trains and they were above ground. So they were like, all over the city and then you hiding over those trains. You run and hide over those trains so nobody can hit you. On those hills they had snipers so that you really can see what you’re gonna shoot. We were like surrounded all over. Those bombs that you can step on them, mines. If you step on them, that’s a really bad thing also. After the war, they’re still doing that, in big fields. They don’t have that in Sarajevo anymore because they cleaned it, but they had that a lot, in parks, woods or something, they had those mines and the people after the war, the special people went and cleaned that up. All over Bosnia they’re still doing that. They go in the woods and park or somewhere. A lot of children died like that. They went to the park and played.

Loulou: One thing I hate about mines is that there’s no expiration date or anything. Once they’re there, they’re there forever and the stupid guys they just plant the mines all over the place and then after they have no idea where they did it and when you ask them, they don’t know and when people just go around it just explodes. It stays there and it just stays there forever. I don’t know who or which country invented that. It’s so stupid. Why could somebody come up and invent such a deadly stuff and they’re like proud of it, saying Oh, we’re gonna have money by inventing this and then people buy it and then kill innocent people. A friend of my dad’s got killed. He didn’t know, he was and it just exploded. And you should see what it does; you’re torn into pieces. I hate that thing.

Serge: There is people they never care about innocent people.

Loulou: Those people who invent that, they’re terrorists also. I’ll call them terrorists. Because if you can just say oh, let me invent this just to kill people. Maybe you’re a modern terrorist. That’s how I feel. It’s so scary, thinking about it, once it’s there, it’s there forever. If nobody steps on it, it’s cool. But once somebody steps on it, it’s like a spring, maybe you’ll step on the whole thing, but if you step on half and the spring goes off, then that’s it. I just don’t’ want to think about it. It’s scary. That’s the worst thing. And I think those countries, Angola, they suffer from that. You see people walking, they die from it. That’s always my question. Who the hell invented this? I don’t know, that person should definitely be killed. Because you don’t need such things. They are the ones creating all this problem. After they say oh war war war. But why did you create it? Why did you invent it? Invent something that will be useful to humanity, but not something like that. And then you apologize, Oh if I sell this, I’ll have money and then you’ll live your life. It’s not cool. But people don’t think about that, they think about something else and those are the things that start everything. They leave such problems and they say that’s okay, it’s not a problem. But those are the problems we are faced with because innocent people get killed.