I have participated in the refugee assistant project in Serbia as a volunteer staff of JEN (Japan Emergency NGOs) in September 1995, when I was a university student.

We have visited several refugee camps dotted in Yugoslavia and provided them with some daily necessities: toilet papers, shampoo, detergents, etc., cooperating with IRC (International Red Cross). Although most of the refugees, according to what an officer of IRC told me, could find a place to live in their relative's houses, the rest of them, just like whom we have visited, were under severe conditions; they had to stay at motels, out-of-use private company-owned accommodations, cottages, etc. Those places were too small in capacities to accommodate all the refugees that they must endure to be packed. For example, I saw two families, of six people, being packed in one small room.
There were even the cases where the refugees were packed in a hall in which beds occupied nearly the half of the space. In other place, one refugee who was staying in a small room was using several wooden boxes as a substitute for bed.In spite of such difficulties, they welcomed us from their heart.

But the sufferings they have gone through during the conflict were casting shadows behind them. Such “shadows” were sometimes obvious: I met a lonely old lady wearing mourning dress. In other place, I saw a woman who became insane because of the conflict.
I could not help feeling vast distance between me and them whenever I felt their sufferings. Such feeling still remains in me.

According to the statistics by UNHCR, the total number of refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina is over 2,000,000, as of December 1995. I am afraid that many of them are still living in such severe conditions.