Borderline Cases

DE VLUCHT UIT VELIKA KLADUSA is a description of the exodus from the city of Velika Kladusa, on the Bosnian-Croatian border. Fleeing from the Bosnian fifth corps, more than twenty thousand people were forced to leave the town. Now they have been living for almost one year in a camp that they pitched thirteen miles down the road. Some of them try to realise what has happened, while others prefer to close their eyes to the facts. After the inhabitants of Velika Kladusa had been expelled from their city, Serbs took possession of their houses. But people have also been driven away from the place where the refugees pitched their camp. For instance, grandma Dessa saw how the place where she lived was overrun by twenty thousand refugees. In HET STOFFELIJK OVERSCHOT we see people return to their properties for the first time in nine months. Since the Kuplensko camp is not officially recognised by the authorities it has to be evacuated. The people who have found refuge in the camp have two possibilities. Leaving the camp through the northgate holds out prospects of emigration to the 'land of unlimited opportunities': America. But leaving the camp through the southgate means returning to Velika Kladusa, the city they fled from nine months earlier and which is now in Serbian hands. While a few of them have the prospect of a better life, others feel betrayed. This causes friendships between people who have endured the scourges of war together to fall apart.