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There were two reasons why people risked their lives to deliver humanitarian aid during the war. The first was concern for the victims of genocide. If we couldn't convince our governments to use force to stop the aggression, than at least we could bring limited comfort and support to those who had suffered the most. The second reason was so that governments would have an excuse for not taking decisive action. The worst example of substituting aid for action was in 1993 when Srebrenica was falling to Serb nationalist forces for the first time. Neither the United States, NATO nor UNPROFOR were willing to save the lives of Bosnian civilians with air strikes. Instead, the United States led an effort to drop pallets of aid from 10,000 feet. At that altitude the aim was often poor, the goods were frequently damaged, and civilians were sometimes killed by snipers in their desperate attempt to retrieve the aid. The top photo was taken while convoy with Edinburgh Direct Aid from Scotland. We were traveling over Mt. Igman on the last leg of a journey into Sarajevo with almost 50 tons of aid destined for a UN warehouse. Scenes such as these -- overturned and destroyed vehicles -- were all too common on Mt. Igman and other aid routes. The photo to the right was taken during an aid delivery to a rural community in central Bosnia. We were delivering desks and chairs to an otherwise empty school house. The countryside was dotted with small villages which were once ethnically mixed. After almost three years of ethnic cleansing by Serb and Croat nationalists, each village became either Serb, Croat or Muslim. This one was Muslim. |
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