The Photographs of Clare Smart
© Clare Smart
BOSNIA, 2011
Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje
70 miles west of Sarajevo, in the centre of Bosnia lies Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje, surrounded by a terrain of mountains and valleys. Population 25181.
The legacy of the war in Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje is deeply entrenched and complex. By the end of the Bosnian War in late 1995 the town had one of the largest concentrations of unexploded mines in all of Bosnia and the vast majority of infrastructure had been destroyed. People who had grown up together now found themselves dwelling in separate ethnic communities with the town split along the 1994 ceasefire line, each with its own system of government, schooling, fire department and the like.
Since the ending of the war the town has been largely reconstructed and has gradually established a number of joint municipal institutions such as a unified police force, for example. Work is currently being undertaken to build a unified town hall and school but divisions still run deep amongst the competing nationalist political parties despite international efforts to promote reconciliation. Almost two decades after the beginning of the conflict few Bosnian Muslims or Croats ever venture to the other side of town as Gornji Vakuf and its Bosnian Croat sibling, Uskoplje, remain for the most part as divided and parallel halves of the same town.