Return to the Scene of the Crime: Hasija Survived Camp Horrors at 18

Hasija's story is a project by photographer Velija Hasanbegović with the support of the Center for Post-Conflict Research, which attempted to tell her extremely difficult life story through photographs, reports the BH News Agency Patria.

At just under 18 years old, Hasija was brutally raped, not once, not twice... When she was finally exchanged, she learned that her father and brother had been killed.

- Ten soldiers came to my house. Before that, they had set fire to my grandparents' house, and my three-year-old sister was visiting them. They ordered me to go with them. They took me to my high school. I was under 18 and had never been intimate with a man. That night, they took me to the school basement. They threw me on the floor. I couldn't see their faces: I begged and pleaded. Nothing helped. I lost consciousness. I woke up in a classroom – I didn't know how to feel, only aware of the emptiness inside me. I was kept locked up in the school for a month and a half. I thought I would never be freed, and they continued to come and take me away during the night.

Hasija says her life has no value today, and the armor of wounds from her youth makes her daily survival difficult.

- The terrible past of my youth is my only self and my reality. Twenty years ago, I had dreams of a happy life, and today they are the sea of the present, bathed in the blood of my loved ones who are no longer here. My light at the end of the tunnel was extinguished by tears, and the voice of hope was drowned out by gunshots that I still hear with every beat of this long-weary heart – says Hasija.

The photographs depict Hasija's journey back to the place that changed her life forever and the life that is now her reality.

Turning Hasija's memories of horrific crimes into these photographs was a very emotional and difficult task for Velija, as he himself carries many bad memories from the 90s.

Returning to '92 and the scene of the crime was a very big step for both of them, but the need to tell and document the truth was greater. Hasija's difficult life story was a great inspiration to Velija, and Hasija once again gathered her courage and told her story.

These photographs tell the story of a broken youthful dream, of a lost gaze, of the wounds of the past and confronting the present.