Searchng for hope in Bosnia: Good Friday, Radio 4

Anglican celergyman, the Revd Donald Reeves returns to Bosnia with former Balkans Correspondent for the Times, Eve-Ann Prentice, at 3.30pm, Good Friday on Radio 4, to search for glimpses of hope which have arisen from some of the darkest moments of the Balkan War during the 1990s. Donald Reeves, former Rector of St James' Piccadilly, now working in Northern Bosnia as a campaigner for reconciliation, introduces journalist Eve-Ann Prentice to some survivors of the ethnic cleansing which took place in and around the Banja Luka area. Listening to accounts which are both moving and horrific, they learn of the resilience of the human spirit and the power of forgiveness to transform lives in the wake of murder, rape and torture. They begin their journey in a warehouse in Sanski Most, which houses the remains of nearly 2000 bodies recovered from mass graves. Here they encounter Eva Klonowski, a forensic pathologist, who has devoted her life to the painstaking task of reassembling the skeletal remains in anatomical order. "I am returning their names", she says as she collects DNA samples to repatriate the remains with surviving relatives. Driving through the local countryside, where the beauty is given away by the still tell-tale signs of empty and derelict houses, they meet Mirsad Duratovic, a survivor of the Omarska Camp, who witnessed the murder of 14 members of his family but finds hope in his children's future; Sr Myrna, a radical nun who works to bring together Muslim (Bosniak), Serb and Croat; and a convent of nuns who despite having suffered terribly at the hands of Serbian soldiers have returned to live with and help their attackers. The programme, produced by Mark O'Brien, was recorded entirely on location in Bosnia and s a presenterless format structured around eyewitness accounts and conversations/reactions between Donald Reeves and Eve-Ann Prentice.