'No More Life There': Gaza Refugees Start Anew In Bosnia

More than three decades after Palestinian Samir El-Barawy and his new Bosnian bride fled to Gaza to escape bloody fighting in Yugoslavia, the couple has been forced out again by war

Salakovac, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Nov, 2023) More than three decades after Palestinian Samir El-Barawy and his new Bosnian bride fled to Gaza to escape bloody fighting in Yugoslavia, the couple has been forced out again by war.

The flight back to Bosnia from his home in northern Gaza was filled with peril, and their house was hit by an air strike just days after a Hamas onslaught across southern Israel triggered conflict anew.

"I left everything behind, but I'm alive", the 59-year-old Palestinian told AFP just days after arriving at a refugee centre in Bosnia's Salakovac.

El-Barawy said the strike on his home "was like an earthquake."

Following the attack, El-Barawy and more than a dozen family members decided to move south along bombed-out roads littered with the dead.

"We saw corpses along the road, dead people in cars. Dogs were roaming around the corpses. There was a very strong smell," said El-Barawy.

Israel says Hamas's October 7 attack killed 1,200 people.

Israel's retaliatory strikes and ground offensive have killed about 15,000 people, according to the Hamas government in Gaza.

El-Barawy's return to Bosnia marks a dramatic change in fortunes for his family.

The Palestinian first arrived in Yugoslavia decades ago when the socialist federation welcomed students from around the world.

In 1991, he was studying in Sarajevo as war threatened to overrun Bosnia, following an outbreak in fighting first in Slovenia and then later Croatia.

"It's going to erupt here," said his wife's father as he encouraged them to leave.

The couple along with their infant daughter Dalila followed the advice and fled before Sarajevo was encircled by Serb forces in a years-long war that saw around 100,000 killed in Bosnia.

Despite perennial bouts of fighting amid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the family prospered in Gaza.

El-Barawy ran a strawberry plantation just "500 metres from the Israeli border" and exported thousands of tonnes of fruit annually, including to European markets.