Srebrenica, July 30: We stop off at the home of Magbula Divovic, one of the Bosfam weavers who returned home from Tuzla three years ago. Magbula lives just up the road from the Potocari memorial – the place where she was separated from her husband and youngest son in 1995. She remembers how Mladic, the Serb General, reassured the crowd that the men would be returned.

Magbula Divovic (left), Shweta Dewan (AP Fellow), Beba Hadzic, Antigona Kukaj (AP Felllow)

Magbula’s husband was found and re-buried at Potocari. Her son is still missing. He was fifteen in 1995. A few months younger and he might be alive.

Magbula is well known to the Advocacy Project. I have one of her large carpets at home, and she visited the US in July 2005 with Beba on a speaking tour at our invitation. There were some wonderful moments. I remember her face when we drove past an exotic character in Hartford who was roller-skating in the opposite direction, naked from the waist up, carrying a huge boom box and a poster which read “Guns suck!” Magbula’s jaw dropped. She would sit in the back and smile “Ideas! Ideas!” as Beba and I chattered on in the front. It became a standing joke.

But for much of the time Magbula would sit for long periods with her head in her hands, gazing out of the window. We woke up one morning at our house in Washington to find her frantically sweeping the back yard. “I have to work,” she told us. “It takes my mind off things.” Weaving serves the same purpose. She was one of the Bosfam regulars before she returned, and has two looms in her small house.

This has not been a good few months for Magbula. She returned to look after her aged parents. Her house was renovated by aid agencies, and she devoted herself to raising a couple of sheep and tending to her garden. But both of her parents died recently, and she had to hand her sheep over to be slaughtered because of an outbreak of brucellosis.

After Karadzic was arrested last week, carloads of young Serbs raced up and down the road, past where Magbula’s husband lies in the Poticari cemetery, blowing their horns and shouting Karazdic’s name. Magbula was thoroughly unnerved and she vents her anger on us with a minor tirade against the Serbs. Beba has trouble keeping up with the translation.

Magbula has cooked a massive meal for us of boiled chicken, chicken soup, bread, vegetables, pastries, and coffee. She craves company, and Beba makes a point of visiting whenever she can. But Magbula is deeply lonely, and tears come to her eyes as she describes the nights as a torment. Shweta and Antigona are deeply moved and hug her tightly. The Bosfam widows have this effect on visitors.

As we leave, promising to return, I ask if Magbula has photos from the past. The answer is no. Like Beba she left without anything, and has been writing to relatives for photos. He has one prized photo of her son and grandson, who are now in Tuzla. We leave her to her flowers and isolation. What Magbula needs most is company, preferably of other women.