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Saturday, June 10, 2000
By Michael A. Fuoco, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Amid the uncertainties she and her family faced during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, Dr. Sajma Suler knew one thing for sure: She had to keep her children close to her, and not just for what little protection she could provide.
"I was always thinking, if a shell hits our building, I'd like to die with my kids. I wanted to make sure they died around me," Suler recalled this week. "I saw mothers whose children were killed while they played outside or in a different room.
"At that time, you don't go through normal grief. Can you imagine losing a child and life goes on?"
Today, Suler, her husband, their two children born in the former Yugoslavia and a third born in the United States are safe and well in Johnstown, where she is a family practice resident at Conemaugh Memorial Hospital.
But ask about her experiences of 1992-93 in Sarajevo, where she prayed with her family to either live or die together, and it's easy to see why the issue of women and armed conflict was one of the 12 critical areas of concern identified at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. Those 12 areas were re-examined this week at a United Nations General Assembly special session.
In Sarajevo, where the Sulers had moved thinking it would be safer than their hometown in the north, Sajma gave birth to the couple's second child as bombs exploded in the city. While her husband worked in civil defense, Sajma stayed with the children, hoping to keep them out of the way of bombs, trying to sustain them with what little water and food they could find. Death was everywhere, even in the front of their building, where her son's playmate was killed.
"You're just numb. Now, when I look back, I don't think I had feelings like I have now. Now, when I care for someone [elderly] and they die, I cry. At that time, I don't think I had those feelings.
"You feel so different when you go through something like that. You keep asking yourself, 'Why? Why? Why? Why is this happening to me?' even though we were among the luckiest because we were able to leave after two years and others had to stay."
Having experienced what she has, Sajma knows that, as the Beijing conference said, women need to strive against armed conflict.
"There would be no war if they were asking women. Unfortunately, we've never had that voice," she said.
"Life is probably more precious to women than men. Women don't have that feeling of dying for a country or some stupid idea. They are more protective of children.
"I've seen different attributes in men, even my husband ... who didn't want to leave the country because he felt it would be an indication of cowardice. I would never think like that. My first job would be saving my children."