Homecoming

last updated 8 January 2015

Sarajevo, Bosnia

More than a million Bosnian refugees have returned to the homes they fled during the ’90s, the U.N. said this week. Some 2 million people, mostly Muslims but also Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs, were driven from the country during the 1992–95 Yugoslav wars. It’s taken nearly 10 years to coax back even half of the displaced Bosnians. Many families have been terrified to return to villages where neighbors they had known for years turned on them. But U.N. diplomat Peter Kessler said the spate of repatriations shows that Bosnia is returning to multiethnic peace. “When the international community is prepared to put money into these operations, refugees can go back,” Kessler said. Peacekeeping in Bosnia has cost some $50 billion so far; the price tag for reconstruction is around $30 billion.