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Alija Ibrahimpasic

Portrait Alija Ibrahimpasic

Along with our guide's poor knowledge of the area and our own inexperience, we hadn't taken the usual precautions in approaching the area as we simply couldn't see any traces of a conflict having taken place.

There weren't any mud huts or trenches, there weren't any paths that would have led to them, there was actually nothing there except the reservoir. We knew only that an SFOR light-armored vehicle had driven over an anti-personnel mine while it was turning around on the largest trail, and that one of its wheels had been damaged. That was the only piece of information that indicated we should be suspicious of the area.

We started out on this basis with this man as our guide. He walked about twenty meters in front of us. He managed to get through everything on his own, but my colleague and I stayed well behind him. I went first, and my colleague followed about a meter behind me. We were walking along a very narrow path, which was actually a dry creek-bed. I stayed in the middle of the path because I knew that mines are usually placed along the edges. We came to the branch of a tree that was growing out across the path. I pushed it aside and waited for my colleague so that it wouldn't hit him. At that moment, just as I tried handing the branch to him, he stepped about ten centimeters to one side, to the edge of the path, and stepped on a mine, which exploded immediately. The detonation was extremely loud. At first I fell to my knees because I expected another explosion. But there wasn't one. I turned around and saw that my friend had lost his right foot.

In a fraction of a second, the thought shot through my mind of how I would feel if I lost a foot. It suddenly occurred to me that he would only be capable of doing fifty percent of what he had been previously been able to do. I tried to put myself in his place. And there is nothing more important to me than to play soccer with my friends, although I am over fifty.

Drawing by Alija Ibrahimpasic