Jasenko’s Flight

When the Bosnian war broke out Jasenko Selimovic’s parents had recently made a job-related move to Sweden. On the 6th of April, 1992, he had just returned to Sarajevo after visiting them, with the intention of graduation from the Art Drama College.

Jasenko was the only passenger on the flight, one of the last into Sarajevo before the siege. The war came as a total shock: "We couldn’t believe that something like that could happen in our country … that people could get assassinated because of their name or nationality."

On 5 May the shelling started, and eventually half of the town was destroyed: "One shell for each inhabitant" comments Jasenko dryly. Sarajevo became a city under siege. Only the airport, which was held by the UN peacekeepers, remained open (the Serb forces "agreed" with the UN not to attack supply flights as long as no people entered or left the city via the airport).

Jasenko was determined to get out somehow, and in December he arranged with a smuggler to flee Sarajevo at night via the airport. On the day of the flight he was picked up at home and given fifteen minutes to pack. Jasenko quickly gathered together some money, gold and underwear, but in the ensuing panic left it all in the apartment!

In the end he only brought two things with him: music by Djordje Balasevic, one of former Yugoslavia’s most loved performers, and The Blooming of the Pumpkins by A. Mihajlovic, a book about an immigrant in Sweden.

Together with several other escapees, Jasenko had to hide close to the airport until nightfall. At last it was time to make a dash for the plane. Suddenly Jasenko and another man in the group were discovered, and they started to run in the opposite direction, back towards Sarajevo. Prevented from re-entering the city, they were forced instead to walk towards the Igman Mountain. The following day Jasenko managed to get a ride to the Croatian border, where he took a bus to Split, and finally a flight to Sweden … and safety.

It was Christmas, and Jasenko was struck by all the lights in the streets and windows. Throughout the long months of the siege Sarajevo was a city in darkness, and now Jasenko made his parents walk with him back and forth along one of Stockholm’s brightest streets -- it gave him an enormous feeling of freedom just being able to walk in lamplight.

Interview by Kiki Rodriguez, UNHCR Stockholm