Thirty years ago, Mirsad fled into the woods and became a refugee when the biggest European war since 1945 broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina.. Today, with a bitter sense of deja vu, he again watches as another worst war since the Second World War breaks out again in Europe..

“What is happening in Ukraine is terrible. Absolute disaster. It evokes a lot of memories for me,” the Bosnian told Politico reporters..

Mirsad eventually returned home a few years after the war.. He has to live in a region controlled by the same people who killed his brother, terrorized his parents, burned down his village. But Mirsad returned only because he was forced to. His story well illustrates how difficult it can be to return, even if international support and peacekeeping forces guarantee security..

On May 3, 1992, at the beginning of the notorious ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbian fighters entered the village of Granca, beat three men to death who did not have time to escape, shot a young girl named Selma Godzic, and also burned many houses. Eventually, the Serbs took control of an entire region in eastern Bosnia near Srebrenica, where Serb forces carried out the biggest massacre in Europe since World War II in an attempt to expel the Bosniak Muslims who made up the majority of the population.. Since there was nowhere to go, at that time, 31-year-old Mirsad and other villagers returned 10 days later from the forest and surrendered. The Serbs detained them and beat them in a school gym in a town nearby for several days.. There, the guards shot several men in full view of the other prisoners.. Mirsad overheard Serbs gleefully discussing the murder of another man. He realized they were talking about his brother.

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Mirsad later fell into a group of those who were evicted to the territory controlled by the Bosnian government.

" I could not get rid of the feeling of fear,” recalls the Bosnian.

With the help of smugglers, as well as crossing the border on foot in the mountains, Mirsad was able to get to Germany, where his sister lived.. There he met his future wife, Azemina, who fled from a neighboring village, where 64 residents were killed on May 9. She fled to Srebrenica.

Frozen conflict.

In 1995, an international peace agreement effectively froze the conflict, leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina a nominally unified country, but politically divided into two.. One part including the area where the village of Mirsada is located is now called Republika Srpska. The other part is a federation created by Muslim Bosniaks and Croats. In an attempt to get rid of tens of thousands of refugees, the EU has declared that Bosnians must return home.. And in order to avoid the resumption of ethnic cleansing, peacekeepers were sent to the country, who were supposed to take care of the safety of people. Only now in their home region they have become a minority. It is important that the peace agreement was supported by both the West and Russia.

" But who wants to live in a region controlled by the same people who had to flee? Will Ukrainians want to return to Russian-controlled Mariupol "

Mirsad definitely did not want to return. When Germany told him it was time to leave its territory, he went to Sweden and asked to be granted refugee status.. But he was denied. In 2003, he finally returned home with his wife Azemina and two daughters.. Bosniak's parents returned earlier, tired of fleeing to another part of Bosnia. Older people are often less willing to leave their homes in times of war. But when soldiers with machine guns doused the spouses with gasoline and threatened to set them on fire, they fled, leaving the burning house behind.. Thanks to foreign aid, they were able to rebuild it later..

“Local Serbian builders came to build our house. They happily greeted each other as if nothing had happened,” Mirsad’s mother said..

Half of the 2 million displaced Bosniaks have returned home, UN figures show. Unlike Mirsad, many of them refused to return to where they used to live, fearing persecution..

Life among ghosts.

A Politico journalist recalls visiting Bosnia from time to time after 2006 to visit families he met during the war. One day Mirsad showed him a tree behind which “on that very day” he hid and watched how the cattle in the village were burned alive along with the stables.. According to the Bosnian, upon his return, he still feels that he is surrounded by the ghosts of the past.

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“It was so good here, I remember this place beautiful. May started that day. Everything was green, it was so beautiful, ”says the man.

Upon his return, Mirsad was engaged in various strange things.. He picked strawberries and other crops in the fields of neighbors who never returned.. On the street, people discussed the past only in whispers, afraid that someone might overhear them.. When he came to pick up his daughter from a school in the nearby town of Bratunach, he was terrified.

“Imagine how hard it was for me when I brought my child to school and realized that it was there in the gym that I was kept in prison, and my brother and other people were killed there.. It’s impossible not to feel fear there,” Mirsad explained..

He said that some of those who attacked his native village came from Serbia. Others were local, even neighbors. In the end, one of these neighbors was even convicted of participating in the attacks, but not for murder, but only for burning houses..

" But I still live here. And no one will guarantee my safety,” the man said..

After the war, Serb neighbors cross the street to avoid seeing him.. Mirsad wonders if they feel ashamed for what they have done. At the same time, he avoids trips to Bratunach. Because Muslim Bosnians are not welcome there. They are prohibited from entering some local shops and cafes.

Trying to look to the future.

Emptiness reigns in Granch, the village seems almost abandoned. But Mirsad and his family are trying to do their best so that the terrible past does not poison their lives.. He and Azemina have two daughters who received a good education, first at a local school, and then in Srebrenica, along with Serbian schoolchildren..

“We need to think positively. If they say that I'm different, I'm sad, I feel sorry for them.. We shouldn't hate each other,"

Mirsad complains that his daughters are taught the Serbian version of history, the Serbian language and Serbian literature, as if they do not live in Bosnia at all..

“Replace Serbian with Russian and get what awaits Ukrainian children in schools in Russian-controlled territories,” the newspaper writes..

Mirsad's daughters left to study and work in the city of Tuzla in the territory controlled by the Bosnian government. It is unlikely that they will return to their native village. Sarajevo or emigration in general attracts many Bosnians who think that the war-torn country cannot provide them with a future.. The war in Ukraine put Bosnia and Herzegovina in danger. Republika Srpska leaders praise Vladimir Putin and his war against Ukraine. They threaten that they will also start the process of secession from Bosnia.

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Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU has doubled its peacekeeping contingent on Bosnian territory, fearing that geopolitical instability could undermine the Bosnian peace. Mirsad watches the events in Ukraine with sadness, anger and disgust. He says that the Russian war reminds him a lot of what he himself went through. But the Bosnian adds: “The bombing and shelling of cities is much worse than it was here. What is it all for?

To justify his wars in the 1990s, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic spoke of the need to protect the Serbs who remained outside his country when Yugoslavia collapsed..

At first, the aggression against Croatia was justified in this way, and then against Bosnia, where about 100 thousand people died.. Putin, mourning the collapse of the USSR, repeats the claims of Milosevic, only about Russians. Like, in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova they also need to be “protected”.

“If Putin cannot defeat Ukraine, he will do everything to make it a weak and divided country on the verge of death.. Bosnians know well what it's like,” the article says..