(20 Nov 2020) A quarter of a century after the US-brokered peace agreement ended Bosnia's internecine war, the country's Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Christians and Catholic Croats live in fear of a renewed conflict as nationalist leaders continue to stoke ethnic animosities.
This weekend will mark the 25th anniversary of a peace agreement between Bosnia Hezegovina, Serbia and Croatia, reached in Dayton, Ohio, US on Nov. 21, 1995.
The accord put a stop to nearly four years of bloodletting in the small Balkan country.
Now, former enemies are dedicating their life to preaching reconciliation across ethnic divides using their painful first-hand experience of conflict and its aftermath.
Edina Sehic was a soldier with the Bosnian government army, and Janko Samoukovic fought with Bosnian Serb troops whose stated goal was to unite the territory they claimed for their own with neighbouring Serbia.
They were more likely to kill each other than to shake hands.
Over recent years, the two have often jointly visited schools, town halls and other public venues around their still ethnically fragmented homeland to talk about the futility of war.
Their children, both born shortly before the end of the war, say their parents' example has helped them reject nationalism despite the dominant, warmongering rhetoric of ethnic leaders in Bosnia.
Some Bosnians hope that the forthcoming US administration, under President Joe Biden, will initiate the reform of Bosnia's broken constitution, which was part of the 1995 agreement.

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