The border shares grave places

The unusually drawn state border between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the villages of the Priboj local community Sastavci, made strange divisions and led to the fact that the hosts there have a house in one country, backyards in another, and that family graves are exactly on the "separation line". ”. It often happens that the deceased is buried with his head in one state and his feet in another.

In the hills on the left bank of the Lim, the Serb and Bosniak population has lived in harmony for decades, about 1,100 of them. , on the territories of the municipalities of Rudo from BiH and Priboj from Serbia. Momir Markovic from the hamlet of Zamršten, says that he owns two hectares of land, however, and that he had no idea that he would have to cross the border about twenty times every day in order to cultivate a large estate. He jokingly adds that his hives are in Serbia and that the bees collect honey in the neighboring country. However, to make the absurd even bigger, the border is cut even by the family cemetery of the Markovic family.

For the residents of this hamlet, the only relief, when someone dies, is that they do not have to report to the authorities of another state that the deceased will cross the border several times on the way to the eternal home. As the villages of the local community Sastavci were divided into Serbia and Bosnia, so were the priests divided parishes. If someone from Bosnia dies, the funeral is performed by a priest from Rudo, and if he is from Serbia, a priest from Priboj accompanies him to the other world. However, they have one thing in common, payment, it is done in both currencies, stamps and dinars are equally valid.

The Post Office, the police, the school and the ambulance are officially institutions of Serbia in Sastavci, and they are located on Bosnian territory. Despite the fact that both police patrol the village together, if there is a violation, Bosnian police officers write.

"I am on the land of Agia, on the land of Bosnia, the land of Serbia, everyone's and nobody's ...", is the verse of the song by retired teacher Radica Pendić about the village of Medjurečje, Bosnia and Herzegovina's "island" in Serbia, bordered on all sides by Priboj municipality.

In addition to the song, the teacher who spent her working life in "Bosnian San Marino" sent a letter to the residents of the local community Sastavci in which she wished them that this year, after two decades of waiting, the status of borders in that area would finally be resolved.

Međurečje represents a kind of precedent when it comes to disputed borders in the former SFRY.

In order to get from one end of the municipality of Priboj to the other, the residents were forced to cross the state border between Serbia and BiH four times, because all the roads in that area lead through a Bosnian island of four square kilometers.

Hajro Gibanica, a resident of the village of Sastavci, who has land in both countries, complains that he had to sell a cow because, as he says, due to complications at the checkpoints, he could not transport the products to the market in Priboj.

By the way, it is believed that the "island" was created when a certain Bosnian fugitive on horseback "went around the circle" and gave those 400 hectares of land to one of his wives.

"Even now, the people live in harmony and no distinction is made between Serbs and Bosniaks. The border is not only a problem for us, but also for the citizens of Bosnia when they go to Priboj.