The Story of Saskia
Written by Ann James.
Dedicated to Saskia
During the conflict between Bosnia/ Serbia/Croatia in October 1995, I joined the Convoy of Hope to Croatia and Bosnia borders, to take aid out to the refugees. It was a harrowing journey to say the least, meeting thousands of refugees, in make shift camps, who all had a tragic story of war to tell. This is just one of the tragic stories I encountered along my way.
Voćin is a village situated in Western Slavonia, one of the three major areas of local Serb revolt against the new Croatian government. We arrived in Vocin on Tuesday 17th October 1995. On December 14th 1991, 45 people from the villages around, half the victims were aged over 62, were murdered by the Serbs. Some of the victims were taken into the church and shot, the church was then blown up and live mines were planted in the rubble, so stop the villages being able to recover the bodies of their dead relatives.
It was here I met a little girl called Saskia. She was thirteen years old, very pretty spoke good English, but her eyes alone told a story. We became good friends during the time I was there. At first she was very shy but followed me everywhere. I tried many times to talk to her but she shied away, often running from me to hide behind a tree or vehicle. She gradually became braver and eventually walked around the village with me - holding onto the back of my tee-shirt and mumbling a few incoherent words to me. By the end of the day, she sat cuddled up to me, as we all sat around a campfire, trying to get the children of the village to sing.
The next day whilst talking with one of the camp organizers, she explained that when the Serbian Army invaded they had picked two villagers from each village and by coincidence both this child’s parents had been chosen. She told me that the little girl had witnessed both her mother and father being taken into the church and murdered. At the time this happened she would have been just nine years old. Her name is Saskia and we have kept in touch ever since. Saskia is now married with a child of her own.