Safe Area Goražde

Abandonment and Neglect in Gorazde. In his “Safe Area Gorazde” Joe Sacco describes his experience visiting a Muslim enclave during the Bosnian War of 1991-1995. Tragically, this work is based on testimonies of residents of Gorazde, allegedly a UN-protected area where Bosnian Muslims are able to take refuge to avoid the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Serbian army. Gorazde is anything but protected which Sacco demonstrates throughout the book by ridiculing the UN and the US who are able to and

Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina” on December 14th 1995. Gorazde was a “safe area” during this war and was home to majority of Muslim refugees from Bosnia this town is mentioned many times during Joe Sacco’s graphic journal and plays an important role to the survival of refugees. Edin is one of the main characters of the graphic journal and was actually Joe Sacco’s translator and one of his best friend during his time in Gorazde. The exploration of ethnic cleansing,destruction, and survival

INTRODUCTION Comic journalism has emerged as one of the most creative and attractive branches of journalism and the role of journalists like, Joe Sacco has proved to be pivotal in carrying out the saga of this form of journalism. In the present era, journalism has emerged as one of the tools which helps people to raise their voices and make all these voices audible to the authority, and in this era only comic journalism has come out as an effective form to hit people directly in their heads. The

American historian Dominick LaCapra closely connects the writing of history with the writing of trauma. Sacco succeeds at “reconstructing the past as objectively as possible” (LaCapra 186), particularly when depicting victim’s testimonies. It is under this framework that allows Sacco to include this type of tragic humor; he is not poking fun at the civilians/victims, but instead reveals the absurdity of the entire war. The conflict stirred when Serbs and Bosnians wanted control of the same territory

Ethnic cleansing was killing or removing other groups to create “pure” areas. There were three towns still under the Bosnian government, Gorazde, Srebrenica, and Zepa. These towns were declared “Safe Havens” by the U.N. which were protected by peacekeepers. On July 1995, the Bosnian Serbs overran Srebrenica. “An estimated 23,000 women, children and elderly people were put on buses and

The Bosnian Genocide began in April of 1992 and ended in 1995. It was a war between the Bosnian Muslims, the Croats, which are Catholics, and the Serbs, which are Orthodox Christians. It occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina where the population was about 3.8 million. The Bosniaks made up 44 percent of the population, the Serbs 31 percent, and the Croats 17 percent. The country is only about the size of West Virginia. The Bosniaks were treated unfairly and inhumanely during this span of three years. It

The genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina marked the first genocide in Europe since the Holocaust during the Second World War. Bosnia-Herzegovina was originally from the former Yugoslav republic. It became an independent state in 1992. After the death of communist ruler Josip Broz Tito the country fell under oppression. Religion played a significant part in the animosity of religious hatred between religions. Bosnian citizens were identified as either Orthodox Serb, Catholic Croatians, or Bosnian Muslims

proposed or attempted. This is known as “peacekeeping”. Peacekeeping attempts have been happening throughout history. Peacekeeping is defined as “the maintenance of international peace and security by the deployment of military forces in a particular area” ( Spagnol). This means the cooperation of different nation states to complete missions or activities that will end in the result of lasting peace. The main contributor to international peacekeeping is the United Nations. The United nations is “an

The United Nations was created after World War II, on October 24, 1945. It was created to provide an international council that would promote peace between countries. They would work together to solve international problems (History of The United Nations). It was also created to replace the League of Nations, the United Nation’s predecessor. There have been many peacekeeping missions conducted by the United Nations, such as interventions in Bosnia, Rwanda, Syria, and Korea. They also have Millennium

peace efforts fail, and all-out war breaks out between Muslims and Croats, who were previously allied against Serbs, Muslims and Croats. In order to spare the civilian population the UN creates safe zones, place where everyone is safe and the combatants should not attack. They are Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde in eastern Bosnia. According to, Steven L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup Armonk, “The US understood that by 1994 recognized the need for a military-strategic balance between Croatia and Serbia, the partitioning