Miracle in Mostar

by Lowell Sheppard and Gerard Kelly
Lion Publishing
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Also available in French at Amazon France

‘I love Mostar. . . I want to come back and here and live here because this is my town.’

Civil War. A city of 150,000 people is on the frontline. Civilians, collecting water and food, shot at by snipers, homes shelled by artillery. The 500-year-old Stari Most Bridge, a symbol of the city’s traditional multi-ethic unity, destroyed.

Into the hell that was Mostar in January 1993 came a young couple. Their simple aim to live and work with those who struggled to survive. To give hope to the suffering. The result: A miracle. Nikola and Sandra have been the catalyst for a new Mostar. Serbs, Croats and Muslims have come together, building bridges out of their common suffering. This is their town. This is their story.

This volume tells the story of life in war-torn Bosnia and of a young couple's heroic efforts to rebuild the shattered community of Mostar. In January 1993, a Croat Christian working for a small aid agency drove a lorry-load of stoves into Mostar, the principal city of Herzogovina and the scene of fierce fighting between Croats, Muslims and Serbs. Once a symbol of peaceful co-existence, Mostar had become a hell of ethnic conflict. The lorry driver, Nikola Skrinjaric, and his fiancee Sandra decided to do what they could to alleviate the suffering of those who had not fled. Two months later, they were married in Mostar and were leading a church, offering support and consolation to those whose lists of bereavements grew by the week. The church has grown despite the hatred, and members of all three ethnic groups are united in a community which is already building bridges of reconciliation and forgiveness. The story of Nikola and Sandra is the focus for this account of the lives of individuals who lived through the hell of Mostar in 1993, each being profoundly affected and changed by their experience. Above all, the book is a story of a city and its people experiencing great suffering.