Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995

Safe Area Goražde (2001) is a work of graphic journalism by Joe Sacco. In the work, Sacco lives in Sarajevo and the town of Goražde at the end of the Bosnian War, interviewing people from the town about the conflict. The work explores such themes as The Impact of Ethno-Nationalism, The Resilience of Community Under Siege, and The Ineffective Role of International Organizations in Conflict. Safe Area Goražde won the 2001 Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Novel. Sacco’s other works of graphic journalism include Palestine, Footnotes in Gaza, and Paying the Land.

This guide refers to the 2022 Fantagraphics paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, death, religious discrimination, rape, sexual harassment, and substance use.

Summary

Joe Sacco sits in a bar called the Alkatraz with friends as they wait for the peace agreement ending the war in Bosnia to be announced. A man speaks with Joe, saying that he wrote a book about Goražde, his town full of heroes. He invites Sacco to visit him, but he never does. The peace announcement does not come that night.

In the fall of 1995, Goražde, a UN (United Nations)-designated safe area and one of the Bosnian Muslim enclaves surrounded by Serb forces, is close to falling. NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) bombing forces the Serbs to agree to peace discussions, but the townspeople in Goražde fear that the town will be traded for suburbs outside of Sarajevo.

Sacco and other journalists arrive in Goražde. He has a UN-issued Blue Card and can leave when he wants, but the townspeople remain trapped, just as they have been for the past few years. Sacco enjoys being in Goražde, meeting many people who, despite the violence, death, and injuries, look forward to the future. He becomes friends with Edin, a teacher who splits his time between the classroom and the front. Edin becomes his guide, showing him the town.

Edin tells Sacco that before the war, Goražde was a diverse town with Muslim, Serb, and Croat communities that all lived side by side. During World War II, intense ethno-nationalist violence swept through Yugoslavia. The post-war authoritarian leader, Josip Broz (known as “Tito”), condemned ethno-nationalist fervor and promoted a united Yugoslavian identity. When he died in 1980, different leaders, like Slobodan Milošević, rose to power by exploiting ethno-nationalist fears. He and others promoted the idea of a greater Serbia, to be accomplished through the ethnic cleansing of other ethnic groups. War broke out in Bosnia in 1992.

Sacco meets Edin’s friend Riki, who, like Edin, was a student in Sarajevo before the conflict began and came home to Goražde. Riki does not think that Goražde should be traded in the peace talks. Sacco stays with Edin’s family in Kokino Selo, the first neighborhood attacked by the Serbs in 1992. Edin’s family’s home is on the river Drina, and the other shore is controlled by Serbs. During the conflict, Edin’s family had to tend their garden and farm animals at night to avoid snipers. They use a woodstove, and the little electricity they get is from a small centrale, a homemade hydroelectric device, that Edin set up in the Drina.

Edin and Sacco often meet with young women in town, and Sacco learns of what the youth experienced. Despite the tragedy and violence, the girls are lively and ask Sacco for jeans. Many people in Goražde like Sacco because he has access to the Blue Road, the UN road from Sarajevo to Goražde that runs through Serb-held territory. It is meant to deliver aid on convoys, but Serb forces often hold these up, minimizing the support that Goražde actually gets. After struggling for days to get a ride on the Blue Road, Sacco reflects on what it is like to feel trapped. Sacco visits the Cultural Center, which tried to promote art and music throughout the conflict.

Edin tells Sacco about how on May 4, 1992, the town woke up to find most of Goražde’s Serb population gone. On May 22, the Serbs launched their first attack on Goražde, storming Kokino Selo. Edin watched from a hill on the front as his house burned. He later learned that it was his neighbors who did it. The people in Kokino Selo fled, but many were shot and killed in the street. When Bosnian forces pushed the Serbs out months later, Edin and others returned to find destruction and death. Some of Edin’s friends were buried with signs of mutilation.

Edin struggles to teach the students of Goražde. He complains that they cannot focus and are often absent. Students have sometimes been killed, and there are not enough supplies. Whenever Sacco spends time with Riki, Riki asks him to transcribe English songs, wanting to become fluent and eventually see America.

Sacco interviews Rasim, a man from Višegrad who fled to Goražde in 1992 after Serb militant groups laid siege to the town. Rasim saw hundreds of Bosnian Muslims murdered and thrown off the town’s bridge. He only escaped when a Serb neighbor helped him get to the Red Cross station. Sacco sees home videos of the destruction in Goražde and watches some film of surgeries with Goražde’s doctor, Dr. Alija Begovic. Begovic and Nurse Sadija Demir explain to Sacco how overwhelmed they were during the war, without proper facilities or equipment. Begovic asks Sacco why the international community did not intervene.

Multiple people in Goražde tell Sacco that they need to leave the town for medical reasons but cannot find a place in one of the medivacs. One woman accuses the system of being rigged and says that only those who can pay are allowed to leave. Begovic disagrees, saying that the Serbs surrounding Goražde determine how many injured can be evacuated and that it is not enough. Meanwhile, most journalists come to Goražde only for the day, leaving on the last convoy.

During the conflict, Goražde suffered from a lack of food. Many, including Edin, were forced to make a dangerous hike through enemy territory to the Bosnian outpost of Grebak. In 1993, UN peace talks stalled, and the food situation worsened. The US began air drops of food into the town, and the UN named Goražde and other towns safe areas. This designation solidified gains by the Serbs, who attacked anywhere not in these designated areas, worsening the refugee crisis.

Sacco speaks with a Serb man who decided to stay in Goražde because he did not agree with the ethno-nationalist ideology that sparked the violence. The Serb forces fired on his apartment from across the Drina. When Sacco asks those around town if they could live with Serbs again, the answers vary.

The Serbs made their final big push into Goražde in the spring of 1994. Edin was wounded on the front and spent time at home recovering. During this time, the Serb strategy grew more aggressive, with heavier bombings of Sarajevo and kidnappings of UN personnel. The UN and NATO, led by US President Bill Clinton, lessened their involvement in response. Serb forces entered Goražde once again. Once the situation became dire, the UN used the threat of airstrikes to convince the Serbs to withdraw from Goražde, which they did.

In the winter of 1995, General Ratko Mladić, commander of the Bosnian Serb army, made plans for a final offensive. The Serbs once again took UN personnel hostage to pressure the UN and NATO to not commit to airstrikes. The UN declared that they could not protect the enclaves. Mladić first attacked Srebrenica, and Sacco interviews two men, Haso and Nermin, who fled. In Srebrenica, the Serbs separated the men from women and children under the watch of disarmed UN peacekeepers. The women and children were transported to Bosnian territory, while the men were murdered. In response, the UN relinquished control of airstrikes to NATO. The new wave of airstrikes was intense and pushed the Serbs to agree to a ceasefire on October 12.

Sacco spends time in Goražde with Edin and others waiting to hear about the peace agreement. The peace talks are held in Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995. When the agreement is signed on November 21, Bosnia will be split into two entities, accepting the territories ethnically cleansed of Bosnian Muslims, but will share a government. Goražde will remain a part of Bosnia, connected by a narrow corridor. In the weeks after the announcement, Sacco notices that many locals are concerned that Goražde will essentially remain an enclave and that more war is inevitable.

Sacco makes his final trip to Goražde in January 1996 and sees how the town has already changed. Many, like Edin and Riki, have returned to Sarajevo to finish their studies. In Sarajevo, Sacco notices that many of the young people he knew in Goražde struggle to fit into the city and miss the town they once wanted to escape. When a friend invites Edin to visit him in Germany, Edin does not want to: He declares that after a years-long pause on his life, he wants to restart it with no more delays.