A walk to remember
Last week we were part of a guided walk
up one of the mountains that surround Jajce. Like in much of the rest
of the country, you don't go for walks in the countryside without
consulting local knowledge. Bosnia and Herzegovina still has an
unknown number of land mines unaccounted for, despite it creeping
closer to two decades since the end of the war here. Some are in
marked mine fields; many are, at least assumed to be, still scattered
indiscriminately in areas where fighting took place. It's not
something you take chances with.
As we hiked up in the hot sun we
stopped in a bit of shade on the edge of a forest clearing. Here our
guide pointed to the shallow hole in the ground that you might be
able to make out in the picture. This was part of the frontline in
the fighting that went on around Jajce. It was here that two guys
who'd sat next to each other at school killed each other; a story
horribly reminiscent of lyrics from the song Crazy by Seal. “One
of them's got a gun, to shoot the other one. And yet together they
were friends at school...” As the guide added, today you could walk
past as if nothing happened, but we do well to remember the madness
and pray it never happens again.
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