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Children in Baljvine.

Villagers in Baljvine, in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity Republika Srpska, have been explaining why they never fought each other even when the 1992-95 war was at its height and battles were raging all around the area.

Sefko Causevic, one of the oldest men in the village, told BIRN that Baljvine’s Serbs and Bosniaks managed to show solidarity with each other even when fighters from the two ethnic groups were killing each other not far away.

“Everyone is interested to know what kind of relations we have and how come we managed to escape the fighting… and I am proud to say that we always had good relations, and we showed that in the recent war when no neighbour was hurt by another neighbour,” Causevic said.

“Many came and asked, how? How is it possible to not be in war? Was it a gift from God?” he added.

Watch the video story from Baljvine made for BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina’s TV Justice programme here (feature starts at 2’25”):