No tears in hell.

• Author: Dzamonja, Dario
• Position: Bosnian civil war

A white U.N. armored vehicle is roaring through one of Sarajevo's streets. In front of the restaurant Makarska, which is now some kind of charity kitchen, women and children are standing in line. They are waiting for a free muffin (made only with flour and water)--"per children's capita"--and the temperature is below zero.

From the vehicle, which does not slow down, someone throws a cardboard box of oranges, and it falls on the frozen street. Oranges roll in all directions.

The line is immediately broken, mothers leave their children and fight like hungry wolves, slipping on the ice, falling down, struggling for precious fruits, heaping them to their bosoms.

One boy, no older than five, is trying to stop his mother; he is pulling her coat.

"Mama, please don't."

She desperately looks at the oranges lying in the street--fewer of them every second--and then she stares at the face of her five-year-old man, hugs him, and begins to cry.

His eyes are dry as he fondles her hand.

"Don't cry, ma. Everything is okay."

I know this may look like a cheap, pathetic scene from some pessimistic, futuristic movie or novel, but this is the truth I saw with my own eyes in A.D. 1993. It's about the children of Sarajevo, about those who are not children anymore, who don't cry anymore, who don't have tears anymore, because there are no tears in hell.

The older ones shed them for their fathers who, one dark night, pressed lips to their foreheads, scratched them with the bristles of beards, told them they would be back soon, but those fathers haven't appeared again. The older children have shed tears for their mothers, brothers, sisters who have lain in blood before their horrified and helpless eyes; for friends with whom they have shared, literally, their last crumbs of bread and whom they buried in the soccer field on...