Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

Although the city was under constant Serbian siege, its people still had to move about the city in order to survive, thus routinely risking their lives.

 

 

 

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Signs reading "Pazi – Snajper!" ("Watch out – Sniper!") became common.

 

 

 

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People would either run fast across the street or would wait for United Nations armored vehicles and walk behind them, using them as shields. According to data gathered in 1995, in Sarajevo alone the snipers wounded 1,030 people and killed 225, 60 of whom were children.

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth was shot and severely wounded while filming in Sniper Alley in July 1992.

 

 

 

Because of this injury, considerable damage was done to her body, and her speech became slurred. Despite her injuries, she returned to work in Sarajevo six months later, joking that she was going back to look for her missing teeth.

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

During the Serbian siege of Sarajevo, Moth would crawl into the rubble of a hotel room on what we called the "Emmental cheese" side of the shell-battered Holiday Inn – in direct line of sight of the Serbs' artillery. Using a night vision lens, and covering her camera's red "on" light with masking tape, she regularly filmed the overnight bombardment of the city by Serbian forces.

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

It was in the Bosnian capital, on 23 July 1992, that Moth and two CNN colleagues set out on what correspondents used to call "one of the best laxatives known to mankind" – the pedal-to-metal dash from the centre of Sarajevo to the airport along "Sniper Alley", at the time a deserted boulevard in full view of Serbian snipers.

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

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Her crew's aim was to interview pilots of relief flights at the otherwise closed-down and besieged airport. Despite their van's speed, Moth was hit in the face by a perfectly-aimed bullet from a sniper many hundreds of yards away, shattering her jaw and destroying her teeth and much of her tongue. After local emergency treatment, CNN had her flown to the Mayo Clinic in the US.

 

"My face, it felt like my face was falling off," she said later of the moments after she was shot. "I remember I was trying to hold my face back on. I knew I had to stay conscious. If I go unconscious, I will stop breathing." She also joked later – but it was true – that her injury left her forever sounding to strangers like she was drunk. For many months, she couldn't speak. Fellow CNN cameraman Joe Duran recalled visiting her in hospital after initial surgery, before she had been allowed a mirror. She scribbled two notes to him: "Mark is OK?" referring to one of her colleagues who had been with her, and less seriously wounded, at the time. The other note read: "Do I look like a monster?"

 

In 1992 Moth won a Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF).

 

She was the subject of the CNN documentary Fearless: the Margaret Moth Story, which aired in October 2009. It was the story of her reporting the news in dangerous war zones, without fear.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In different ways and at different times, Bobby and I had had to rely on each other's resourcefulness to get us though. On this occasion, I blustered my way into the UN office at the airport and – not without difficulty - managed to persuade a rather harassed official to arrange a lift for us in an APC. Bobby then charmed the troops who I think were Jordanian.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 28, 2013 by alanna

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

We managed to find our way to the proper address. Misha and Yasna lived in a flat by the corner of the old marketplace, which had been subject to an infamous mortar attack that had killed over 30 people. Flowers mark the spot where the shell exploded in this photo.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Although we had had no means to get word to them, the sisters welcomed us with a good deal of warmth. Though their abode now resembled something out of Charles Dickens, it was possible to see that they had evidently been quite affluent before the war.

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Now they had burned all their books in a makeshift stove; the walls were blackened with soot, and covered in graffiti, created by Misha's daughter, who had recently managed to escape to the West.

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Yasna had moved in with her sister after suffering from shellshock in her basement flat. Her cat was her lifeline. She never spoke.

 

When I realised they had to queue for bread every morning, I produced the remnants of our last meal in Zagreb - a couple of tomatoes and a chocolate bar. When Misha saw these offerings she went very still and said, "Thank you very much - I have not had a tomato in over two years, or chocolate either. Let me get used to the idea, perhaps we will have them tomorrow."

 

It transpired that the black marketeers were selling a potato or a tomato for 5 deutschemarks apiece, but in any case no one had any money - just scrip with which to queue for bread. As Misha said, "Michael, we have a saying here - some men make brothers of war."

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

 

 

 

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Yasna's cat

 

And so at last to Yasna's cat, and how I very nearly lost my life, though not by sniper fire!

 

The following morning we had arranged to meet Nigel Osborne at the flat. But the sisters had to go out and stand in line for their daily quota of bread. Before they left, Misha said, "Michael, on pain of death, do not let that cat out of the flat. If you do, someone will cook it and eat it. And I do not know what will happen to my sister if that were to happen - that damned cat is her lifeline!"

 

 

More tomorrow...

[Boba]

[Flex Mentallo]

 

I'm sure you can guess what happened next. The sisters went on their errand. After a little while, Nigel turned up. He was a down-to-earth, matter-of-fact sort of fellow who made light of his own quite extraordinary actions. I have no idea how a quiet, unassuming university music professor from Glasgow transformed himself into a smuggler who managed to blag his way through watchful Serb checkpoints time after time - though he did at one point tell me that he had been caught red-handed more than once and fortunately had been able to bribe his way out of trouble.

 

What happened next is still for me the stuff of nightmares.

 

The cat had I thought hidden itself in the darkened bedroom and I had thought nothing more about it. Until I heard it, distantly mewling from outside the flat. I dashed out into the gloomy stairwell. Plenty of mewling, but still no signs of the cat. Nor was it out in the street, or n the landing above, or in the flat above occupied by some rather dubious characters that evidently wanted to shoot me if I didn’t stop bothering them.

 

Baffled, out of breath, Bobby and Nigel hard on my heels, I paused on the upper landing for a moment to draw breath.

 

Which is when I heard the cat. I looked up and saw well above my head a tiny window, and it was open.

 

And the mewling was coming from that direction. I was baffled; because I knew that outside that window was nothing but a 50-foot drop to the car park below.

 

With Nigel's help I boosted myself up and peered out. A good 6 feet below and 4 feet across on the wall at right angles to the one I looked out from was the roof of the tiny balcony of Misha's flat. It looked to be about the size of a large postage stamp and as solid as a sheet of paper, and was pitched at a steep angle. And somehow, the cat had contrived to get out of the flat, through the window, and onto that shaky roof, only to realise there was no way off.

 

When Bobby saw the look in my eye she physically tried to stop me from doing what she saw I intended to do.

 

The fact is, I thought that if I jumped onto that roof it would either collapse, or I would simply bounce off. But my sheer terror at the thought of having to face Misha far outweighed any other factor, so with Nigel's help I managed to worm my way out of the window.

 

 

And then I jumped...

 

[mrmyst]

[Boba]

Will our hapless hero wind up in a pile of rubble at the bottom of a 50 foot drop?

Or will he save the cat from it's perilous perch, and himself in the process?

Stay tuned boys and girls. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.