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Harvest of Sorrow: The Business of Unexploded Bombs
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23821 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 2004 |
5,122 Words |
| Author
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William Pentland
Joel Grossman is a former agricultural pest-control adviser
for the state of California. He is now a free-lance writer
living in Santa Monica, California. |
Railroad tracks shadow the river Praca as it snakes through the canyons of Bosnia's Sudici region. Unused footpaths, left by grazing livestock and wild animals, wander from the tracks like capillaries from an artery. Ridges rise precipitously, forcing the railroad deep into mountain tunnels. For almost three years, the river marked the front line in the war between Bosnia and Serbia. By the time the fighting ended, the railway that had connected Sarajevo and Visegrad had been nearly stripped of its steel tracks, the canyon littered with landmines.
In summers before the war in Yugoslavia, the river had drawn fishermen the way ice cream trucks attract children. Even the occasional rumble of a passing train could not disturb the idyllic splendor of the place. Today, the clean, clear current still sculpts a tremulous flurry of fish. In late summer, the water level falls and small islands sprout between banks, inviting fishermen to cast their lines. Not surprisingly, this is the only river still fished in the postwar Sudici.
To avoid landmines, locals hopscotch from island to island in the river's shallow waters. Radomir Lucic, who traveled from Belgrade to fish in early August 2000, followed the railroad tracks instead. He had ventured twenty meters into the Orjlik tunnel when he stepped on a landmine. The force of the explosion sheared straight through his neck, throwing his head about two meters from his body.
By the end of the week, another fisherman had reported the smell of human decay coming from the tunnel. The next day the police and a nongovernmental demining organization went to recover Lucic's remains. The detritus of war and railroad
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