Blog 12: Busovaca, Santici, Ahmici

 

Santici, Busovaca and Ahmici

During a few months in 1995 I was based in Santici. It was decided to merge the Support Command of Dutch Bat compound Lukavac together with the existing Transport battalion in both Busovaca and Santici. Due to the fact that after the Danish tank battle (beginning 1994) with the Serbs close to Tuzla (see also blog 8), the road from Tuzla to Srebenica was closed by the Serbs it was impossible for Support Command to drive from Tuzla to Srebrenica and the available route was via Sarajevo. Therefor it seemed more sufficient to move Support Command closer to Sarajevo however the history showed that after the move also nearly zero logistics to Srebrenica was allowed by the Serbs so this move hadn’t a lot of impact.

 Destroyed village at the other side of the compound fence

 Life line to home (1 DM/minute)

 

 

Hundreds of both volunteering conscription soldiers and the more professional military were based for several years on the compounds of Busovaca and Santici.

Building a new compound

As part of the construction and engineering detachment I was moved from Lukavac and based for several months to Sanitici. To make it possible to move the Support Command members to Santici, it was been decided to move the Belgium Transport battaljon which was also based in Santici, to a new built compound in Busovaca. In a few months the Belgium compound was constructed and parallel to that the Santici compound was upgraded with a big kitchen and canteen for additional Dutch soldiers.

 Construction activities at Santici

In Santici also a New Zealand infantery unit was based to protect the compound and to do patrols in the area.

Compound entrance of the New Zealand part of the compound

Ahmici

The Santici compound was based in the Lasva valley which was the scene of horrible ethnical cleansing and only after the war I recognized how horrible this cleansing was done mainly by the Croats against the Bosnian Muslims. In the small village Ahmici close to our compound the massacre of Ahmici was executed by the Croat militia’s of the HVO. In this small village lots of civilians where killed, stabbed to death, shot and burnt. The youngest was only a few months old and the oldest was 82. The story of the Ahmici massacre can be found in the following movie.
The pictures and news about the massacre of Ahmici in 1993 was one of the triggers that I decided to volunteer as UN soldier in Bosnia. It was during my preparations for this trip to Bosnia that I recognized that this small village was so close to our compound. 

The pictures of the destroyed mosque “went viral” over the world in that time.

Today the destroyed mosque is completely rebuilt and a memorial plaquette memorized the massacre.

Daily life in a war zone

In Santici I also realized that living for several months in a war zone will make you less sensitive on some risks. The end of Ramadan in 1995 was celebrated with mortar shellings close to our compound and during these shellings we were sitting in our primitive canteen and were watching tv. A few “fresh” soldiers (we called them “verse poep”) were really concerned and afraid but we as “veterans” (and called “ouwe poep”) thought it was nothing to concern only “some shelling”. I realize myself that it is crazy to write this down but it shows that war is changing your mind significantly.

Visit of Prince Willem Alexander

I can also remember the visit of Prince Willem Alexander. I am defending his back on the picture below 😊

 

However the interest of the Dutch soldiers for the Prince was so big that even during his diner soldiers were swirling around his table and I think it was really irritating because he asked “very friendly” if all these soldiers had never seen an eating person?

Santici site today

The sit is completely abandoned and nothing has left, only some gravel.