THE Bosnian war may no longer be prominent in the news but Humanitarian Aid (Hereford) is actively working to help the displaced who are still suffering hardship and distress.

The charity, set up in 1995 to take food and provisions to the war-torn country, is now trying to raise awareness of the many injustices still unrecognised and unresolved.

On a trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dr Richard Parker, of Ross-in-Wye, spoke to Muslim widows and their families who faced hostility and discrimination as they tried to return to their original homes in and around Srebrenica, an area with a predominantly Serbian population.

Dr Parker visited a memorial in Srebrenica which marked the killing of 9,000 unarmed Muslim men in the worst massacre of the war.

“The social consequences of that war still bear heavily on the poor and dispossessed. The stoicism of the women that I met, all of whom had lost husbands, sons and brothers is beyond words,” he said.

An important achievement had been the exhumation and identification of the remains of those killed, so that they could be reburied in marked graves at the Srebrenica memorial site.

“Those trying to go home were mostly peasant farmers who owned self-sustaining smallholdings and would like to resume the life they had,” said Dr Parker.

The charity had raised £1,500 to help them and most of the supplies could be bought locally but the people faced hostility and discrimination deeply rooted in the Serbian community.

“These are women in their 50s who are living a narrow existence. They do not hate but profoundly wish that those who did the killing should be brought to justice but this will never happen. However, Humanitarian Aid is doing all it can to help re-establish their old way of life,” he said.