Response To 'desperate Bosnians' Article By Maggie O'kane 'desperate Bosnians

Response to 'Desperate Bosnians' article by Maggie O'Kane 'Desperate Bosnians risk minefield deaths for US Army rations’ is a war report by Irish journalist Maggie O'Kane. It is a forceful and successful attempt to get through to readers by placing them amidst the people in conflict. Vividly describing the everyday life of Bosnians in the midst of conflict, O' Kane achieves a bigger effect on her audience than usual war casualties’ statistics, which normally cause just a few glances and headshakes. It is a very short story that does not involve many events, yet every word is important and carefully picked. The story revolves around a man called Saudin Guja and a woman he met called Semsa. It takes place in a town called Blaguj, which was cut off by Serbian army from any supplies. Even by giving this title to the article, she already has a great chance of attracting the reader into the story, 'Desperate Bosnians' shows us that the people of whom she is writing have already given up all hope. 'Risk minefield deaths for US rations' suggests a disturbing idea to the reader - Why are Bosnians risking their lives for US army rations?. O'Kane uses a very interesting technique to tell the story. She starts in the very middle, or rather in the end of the chain of events that took place. ''No one knew the dead woman's name. She lay in the basement corridor of Mostar hospital for a few hours’, run the first two sentences. They are very effective, because O'Kane starts out of nowhere with a dead woman on a basement corridor. For the kind of people that would read the newspaper, seeing a dead woman lying on a basement corridor floor wouldn't be an everyday thing. The fact hat she lay there for a few hours shows us that the people that are in this hospital don't find this kind of event extraordinary, otherwise they would have immediately taken her to a hospital room and given her care.In this way O'Kane gives a sense of worry and anxiety, making sure that she has the reader's attention, so she is able to really show the reader what goes on in the lives of these people. O'Kane then goes on to give description of the woman and information about her, giving the reader the facts which he is now longing for ''Her name was Semsa. She was a refugee aged about 45. Saudin Guja met her in the crowd that flooded past his house at dawn to look for the emergency food aid air-dropped on the mountain by the Americans in the night before'. By using very physical, and almost personifying words like 'flooded' O'Kane hints at the fact that the place where the story is situated, is consumed in chaos, and the people involved no longer think, they just use their instinct to survive.. She also shows us how badly the situation is controlled - ''Foor air-droped on the mountain by the Americans'' - A mountain seems like a very unsuitable place to drop supplies for people in war. Now that O'Kane has made sure that she has pulled the reader into the story, she goes on to tell us how all ended up

in this way. As the story goes on, the reader finds out that the Americans had dropped their supplies during the night, however, Saudin didn't want to go because the supplies had been dropped on a minefield which was also very near the Serb front line. This shows how careless the American army was about this situation, to drop food in the minefield, near the enemy, and how much help the Bosnians are in need of. ''Blaguj has been cut off for months. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has not visited’’. Not only they are desperate, they are also abandoned, even the United Nations, an organisation that is supposed to help all people in the world, have given up hope. Saudin then decides that he will starve unless he gets some food and decides to set out and get some of the supplies. ''Packages with Juicy Fruit gum and brown plastic sachets of cherry and cocoa powder'' - again O'Kane tries to force the facts upon us, how careless and useless the Americans are in this conflict, as if chewing gum was going to help starving children! Saudin Guja then met Semsa outside his front gate and together they made for the 'minefield: ''On the way up, they were passed by to soldiers carrying an old man. His leg had been blown off by a mine in Deiho's field''. O'Kane reveals such a horrible detail in such a seemingly casual voice yet again, showing to us what everyday life is for the desperate Bosnians in Blaguj. ''As they reached the field, they saw another explosion in the distance. A mine detonated by someone else scavenging for packages''. Yet again, for them such a normal event, for us, however , such an extraordinary, terrible thing happening. All the people kept going, they received warnings about Serbian soldiers being close by, about mines detonating on each step, but no one listened, they were so desperate to get supplies which could save their lives. As Saudin and Semsa gathered more packages, more and more mines blew up around them, but still they kept gathering, greedy and desperate for food. However now, as they are already risking their lives in the minefields, the point that the Americans dropped the food near the Serb front line shows us what a big mistake it was. ''The Chetniks (Serbian soldiers) were laughing at us'' . '' Come on you Muslims. Come on over here and we'll give you some food'. Maggie O'Kane is trying to show us how horrible the Bosnian lifestyle is; amidst starvation, disease, poverty, they are taunted by the Serbians, insulted, and abused about their religion. ''They panicked, Semsa was running about five feet in front of him when she hit the mine. It blew her apart. '' ''When she was dying, she kept repeating: My

children, my children''. O'Kane tries to make us feel their pain, understand how deep in fear the Bosnians are. Even at this point, when they have almost nothing left, the Serbs bring more harm to these desperate people. O'Kane cries for the help of all people, showing that there are children involved in this conflict, young, innocent children who will never live a proper life. We understand how desperate Semsa was not just for herself, but for the sake of her children. ''They buried her at night in Mostar graveyard, wrapped in a brown wool blanket, in a coffin made from a teak veneer wardrobe''- O'Kane is once again taking us into the horrible surroundings that these people are in: they have no coffins, no proper funerals, they just have to do the best they can. This is a very effective piece of writing, because it brings the reader deep into the conflict, and placed him amongst the people that suffered. It showed the reader what life in Blaguj was like, and why. The article implies that these people who have had the bad fortune of being born and living there require help from every person in the world, including us. It is a piece seeking compassion, and care. It is a sucessful attempt to explain to people the horrors of war, by getting through to them and practically placing the fear of the Bosnians into the readers' minds. Mark Krupnikov, 10C