Skelani Soccer Tournament: Connecting Divided Communities
‘Neither on Sky nor on Earth’
The small village of Skelani (BiH) is in the Srebrenica municipality and has approximately 2500 inhabitants. Skelani is located 50 km from the town of Srebrenica and access to the municipal capital is hampered by dirt roads connecting through the Zeleni Jadar Mountains or by way of the town of Bratunac. The closest town to Skelani is Bajina Basta in Serbia and Montenegro (SCG) located only 3 km away across the bridge over the Drina River.
Before the war Skelani was administratively, and in many ways culturally, very closely connected to the Bajina Basta municipality. With the nearest hospital in Bajina Basta, many children from Skelani were born and attended school in the former Yugoslavia in what is now Serbia. People from Skelani worked in Bajina Basta and shopped in Bajina Basta. In addition, services such as phone and power also came to Skelani through Bajina Basta.
When the war began in Bosnia, Skelani was essentially cut-off from Srebrenica. Road travel, telephone and access to almost all goods and services across the river were non-existent during this period.
The current situation is not much better. Skelani is still an isolated community without access to many basic necessities. If a resident of Skelani needs to go to the hospital or make a major purchase such as a household appliance, they often must travel to Srebrenica 50 km away on difficult roads, although Bajina Basta, with access to these services, can be seen just across the river. Procedural issues at the now international border crossing between Skelani and Bajina Basta, as well as much more intangible issues of mistrust and prejudice, make the border crossing difficult and time consuming.
In Bosnia there is a saying that isolation leads to someone living “ni na nebu ni na zemlji” (neither on sky nor on earth). This adage is often times used by Bosnians to refer to the condition of the residents of Skelani.
Skelani Soccer Tournament
As part of the 3-year USAID funded Cross-Border Cooperation and Reconciliation (CBCR) project, CRS and the residents of the municipalities of Srebrenica and Bajina Basta assisted in the organization of a soccer tournament held in Skelani. A total of 19 teams (16 from Srebrenica municipality, 3 from other BiH municipalities and 2 from Bajina Basta) participated in the event. The soccer tournament was originally planned to include mainly Bosniak teams from BiH as part of the yearly Days of Srebrenica celebration organized by the municipality of Srebrenica. CRS, CBCR local partner AMICA and the project subgrant Cross Border Committee (CBC) and Working Group for Sport and Culture recognized the need to bring teams both from Bajina Basta and from BiH Serb communities to this tournament as a 1 st step to encourage cooperation and connections across borders and between ethnicities, something that has not existed in any substantive form since before the war.
CRS and the CBCs involvement in the organization of the event was significant in providing a different dimension to the soccer tournament. Because of the participation of teams from across the border and from BiH Serb communities, the tournament became more than just soccer; it became a social gathering of people who have been separated for many years but who grew up together, attended school together, worked together and in some cases fought against each other.
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Penalty shot made during the tournament |
One illustration of how this tournament served as a means to reconnect people can be seen in the example of the participation of a team from the small community of Crvice (BiH). Crvice is in the Srebrenica municipality and is located 6 km from Skelani downstream on the Drina River. Before the war Crvice was an almost 100% ethnic Serb community. During the war most Serbs left Crvice, with a number having returned since then. Prior to the war Crvice competed in soccer tournaments with a multiethnic team made up of Serbs from Crvice and their Muslim friends from neighbouring communities. During this tournament Crvice again came together to play as a multiethnic team after a 14-year hiatus with a group made up of Serb returnees to Crvice and Bosniak returnees to Fakovici. The players, many of whom had attended school together and played soccer on the same teams as youth, were reunited for the first time since having faced each other on opposite sides during the war. When the mayor of Srebrenica asked Bosniaks from the Crvice team why they accepted to play for a team representing an ethnically Serb community their answer was, “because of winning and money from award,” a comment taken in jest as the tournament offered only a symbolic award for the winners.
The tournament finished without any problems and celebrations among the participants and spectators continued late into the night. Mixed groups gathered and shared stories and remembrances of past cooperation and interaction. One of the tournament participants commented that, “if there had been more events and sharing like we have had tonight we might not have fought a war against each other.”
Following the tournament there was a positive reaction in both municipalities and there is currently a joint initiative to begin a soccer school in Skelani. The initiative is being led by a Bosniak returnee, Mujo Salihovic (father of a Bosnian athlete who competed in the Olympic games in Athens) and Boro Mijatovic a well-known retired soccer player from the “Sloga” soccer team of Bajina Basta.
Participant Info
Because of the number of participants and the fact that the overall organization of the event was not part of the CBCR project, no information was collected on all participants by names, ages, sex or ethnicities. However the team’s origin and the main ethnicity of their community is proved to demonstrate the level of cross-border and multiethnic participation.
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