Bosnia Aid Trip Opens E To Terror Of Civil War

A Tacoma native says her humanitarian aid trip to Bosnia earlier this month was like stepping into the pages of National Geographic magazine.

But rather than looking at dramatic photographs, Maggie Allen was seeing the images in person - bombed-out homes, deserted streets, the danger of land mines and snipers, hundreds of sad children.

“It struck me that the children’s eyes had lost that sparkle of innocence,” Allen recalled last week in an interview with The News Tribune of Tacoma.

Allen, who now lives in London, was one of 13 people in an “Operation Heart” convoy that delivered food, clothing, computers, medicine, wheelchairs, crutches and toys from England to Bosnia.The mission was sponsored by Caritas, a Catholic aid organization.

“For me, it was a feeling of doing something concrete, donating my time,” she said. “And it was also a chance to see for myself what a civil war was all about.”

The trip was a challenge. Allen and a partner drove a 7.5-ton diesel truck for three days straight, sometimes in blizzard conditions, she recalled in the interview at her family home in Lakewood.

She passed through towns destroyed by mortars and artillery shells, with only candlelight in shattered windows. Burned-out vehicles were abandoned along the road.

En route to Pozor, 60 miles west of Sarajevo, the convoy stopped at a refugee camp made up of 40 rail cars.

“I thought, ‘My God, how can they possibly live?”’ Allen said. “But they had a school. These were their homes. People were just trying to pick up their lives.”In Pozor, she visited an orphanage, where she observed the loss of innocence in the children’s faces.

When a storm buried the convoy, Pozor residents gathered to help clear the snow. When her bags were stolen, some of those in need of aid offered Allen their own clothes.

“They gave us homemade soup, fruit, their only wine, what little they had,” she said. “The spirit of the room was so jovial and positive. We all started singing. We each sang a song from our country.” And together, everyone sang “Silent Night.”

On the drive back to England, Allen said, she contemplated what she had learned:

“No matter how bad it gets, you can survive.”