BOSNIA/ HERZEGOVINA: Volunteers help reconstruct Srebrenica, while other former Yugoslav countries take part in hip-hop festival

Volunteers from Poland are amongst those who are working on rebuilding projects in Srebrenica. And the town hopes hip-hop music will help young people overcome Srebrenica's tragic past. A group of some 70 young men and women have joined an international youth camp in Srebrenica for the second year, assisting the war-wearied community with work that nobody else wants to do. Divided in groups they are improving the roads in the woods to help remote houses to be reached, and are cleaning earth from a medieval fortress above the town to prepare it for restoration. "I looked on the Internet page and I found a Bosnia camp and I thought I'd really like to come because I studied Serbian and Croatian and I have visited the countries here and I liked it very much, so I wanted to come back; and do something good as well," said Katarzina Regulska who came with her friend from Poland to take part. Srebrenica translates as Silver-town for its mines of silver known since the middle ages. The Srebrenica massacre - considered Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two - took place over several July days in 1995. Today it's an impoverished town of up to 7,000 people, with Muslims and Serbs looking at each others with deep distrust. "I hope also we from EMMAUS, that we can help the young people because for me the young people are the future. They can create a new future, to work with each other and to help each other," said Jack Oostereword from France. Volunteers from the camp also took an active role in organising a weekend hip-hop festival that brought in popular acts from all parts of former Yugoslavia to perform for the first time in Srebrenica. Young people from neighbouring towns travelled to Srebrenica, which usually only sees crowds on the anniversaries of the massacre, when families come to bury remains and commemorate the dead. "It should be overcome in any imaginable way," said Belgrade hip-hopper Marko Selic, alias Marchello, upon his arrival. "This could be a very small thing, although a workable way we hope, how to make things start moving. If everyone does a bit we'll get something big and good." Nedeljko Simic, coordinator of the town's cultural centre, believes that only cultural events can bring young people together and help them overcome the tragic past. "Srebrenica is a very small town and 90 percent of people know each other. It is difficult to listen about divisions any more, in such a small place. There are only a few of us left here and if we are divided what life would we have in the town that suffered so much," Simic said.

ITN Source | August 6, 2007

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