Hell On Earth? Try The Ruins Of What Once Was Sarajevo

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Sarajevo, just as you pictured it: burnt-out skyscrapers, gunfire blasting from the darkness, 380,000 people living in an inferno.

There's a joke going around. A man comes to town with a magic telephone, one that lets you call relatives who have been killed.

The first customer wants to call his dead father and dials him in heaven. He talks for a half-hour and the bill is $5,000, but he's happy to pay. The second man calls his brother, who is also in heaven. He talks for an hour and pays $10,000.

The third man wants to talk to his cousin and finds out he is in hell. He calls, talks for two hours and is ready to pay the bill. "How much is it?" he asks the man with the magic phone. He's stunned to find it's only a quarter. Why?

"He's in hell," the man says. "It's a local call."

Sarajevo is a city of bewilderment, anguish, tragic scenes and morbid humor. No one seems able to explain what's going on or why. Baffled by their new reality, they ask: What happened to their old lives, which were so good? What happened to their friendships, to the way Muslims, Croats and Serbs used to live together?

Here are glimpses of life and death in Sarajevo:

Where "calm" is a relative word. Each morning, U.N. spokesmen have a news briefing to outline the daily events of war. Today, Cmdr. Jose "Pepe" Gallegos, a Spaniard, is speaking of the town of Srebrenica, which is in central Bosnia.

"Srebrenica is relatively calm," he said. "There were 342 cease-fire violations." The journalists laugh.

Waiting for power. A Bosnian TV production team that used to produce a weekly satire is frustrated these days, because there's lots of material, lots of dark humor - but no electricity.

They've reverted from television to radio, so at least people can listen (if they can find batteries). But the team still hopes for the moment electricity returns and they can produce their latest creation.

"It's a play about a United Nations soldier controlling the 368th cease-fire," said Elvis Kurtovic, one of the team members. "Every time he hears the shelling start, he marks down another line."

Kurtovic and his companions live an odd existence, sleeping on mattresses in Sarajevo's semi-destroyed state-owned TV building, writing episodes for an audience that hasn't seen them in a year.

"This is the Twilight Zone," said his colleague, Sasa Petrovic, "and we all hope somebody will wake us up."

Food, love and money. Food often doesn't make it past Serb and Croat checkpoints; water pipes have been disrupted; power lines have been cut. The days are often spent trying to find food, paying $8 for a pack of cigarettes, getting wood for a fire, lugging water home.

People survive mainly on aid packages from the United Nations or other charitable groups, but it's never enough. The blockade has driven prices for other food sky-high, creating a black market. An egg costs at least $2.50, and people sell whatever they can.

At the market, you'll see a lady selling nothing but a couple of bags of powdered milk, a man offering one can of carrots.

Ljubica Kalas, 74, is at the market with her chicken. She sits alone in a booth, holding her chicken, caressing it. "I don't want to sell him," she said. "I've got only him."

One fewer doctor. At the Kosevo Hospital, a nurse is crying. What's happened now? Who else was shot? Who else was killed?

But this time no one has been killed or wounded. A doctor - one the nurse loved and admired - has managed to flee the city. It's difficult to escape Sarajevo now, but many did at the beginning of the war and that left a shortage of doctors.

Now there is one fewer doctor to care for the never-ending stream of patients. He left a note for the nurses. He's sorry, he said. He couldn't take it anymore.

Water, no; pets, maybe. Phil Casey, a UNICEF consultant, appears at today's briefing.

"Very briefly about water. There is no more water," Casey said.

Neven Cica and a neighbor walked to their local water supply, only to find that a line of waiting people led down the block and around the corner. They waited an hour and a half and finally, they were next.

"Just as we were putting our buckets out, it ran out," Cica said. "We were standing there like fools. We stood there, watching the last drops of water."

So Cica, an army medic, strapped some plastic jugs over his shoulder and trudged off to the next water tap, about a mile away. He came back soaked with sweat, but he needed the water for his parents. Their dog needs water, too.

It's hard to keep pets in Sarajevo, since they use food and water that is difficult to get, even for humans.

When Nadja Cica first saw the puppy, "some kids were putting him in the trash," she said. "He was skinny and sick, and I took him home, just for a bath. Then I thought he could stay, just for a couple of days."

That was almost a year ago. No one talks about him leaving anymore.

Welcome, Sarajevo-style. At the briefing, Cmdr. Barry Frewer, a Canadian, announces the arrival of 187 French troops, here to protect the "safe haven" of Sarajevo.

Frewer says the troops got "an unfortunate welcome." Sniper fire greeted them, hitting one French soldier in the neck.

And no longer so welcome. Seven Sarajevo youths were killed when a mortar fell where they were playing. The funerals began, one after another. At one, the crowd turned angrily on a TV crew.

Reporters from Western Europe and America used to be their friends, the people here thought. The newsmen conveyed the tragic message of this city and certainly, the people believed, help from the West would follow. But months have passed, no help has come, and the TV crews just keep on filming.

"Get out!" the funeral-goers yelled at the Spanish crew. They shoved and punched the crew members, grabbing at the camera.

No answers, just anguish. These days people debate whether the Muslim-led Bosnian government should give in to a Serb-Croat plan to carve up Bosnia. The plan would bring peace, but would mean an end to their country as they know it. There is no agreement, just lots of anguish.

"I understand the Serbs," said Mrkajic Radoslav, a local Bosnian Army commander. "If I had a big gun and they had a pistol, I wouldn't give up my territory either." But agreeing to partitioning the country is hard, he said, since "too many bad things have already happened."

"It's better to have more dead in a unified Bosnia, than to divide us," agreed Zahid Lindov, a soldier.

A good shot, an unwilling hunter. Another soldier talked of watching enemy Serbs through the scope on his gun. "When I'm not working, I sometimes sit and watch them drinking coffee," he said. "I was sitting once, looking, and I saw two of them sitting in the grass. It was hot and they were in their underwear, taking the sun. Their uniforms were lying next to them and they had a big yellow radio.

"I shot at the radio, and I hit it. I didn't want to hit the soldiers - I was just joking. But they ran into a building, panicked. . . .

"I used to hunt. My grandfather was the greatest hunter in Sarajevo, and when I was a kid, I'd go with him to the mountains. We shot rabbits and foxes. But I think after this, never again could I shoot at a rabbit, a fox or a deer. That's how I feel now. I don't know why."