anchester was life-changing in literally every way,” said Amela Sijaric ’00. “To me, it presented a rescue from suffering and seeing horrific reminders of what had been going on for about four years.”

Sijaric was 14 years old when the war in Bosnia, formerly Yugoslavia, began. Until then, she had lived what she considered “a normal life.”

Amela Sijaric ’00 came to Manchester after living through the war in Bosnia.

On her younger sister’s 11th birthday, military forces entered the town of Sarajevo, where her family had lived for about six years after moving from Montenegro. Everyone in her neighborhood fled, and Sijaric didn’t return to that home again. From there, her entire life changed.

“When people started talking about potentially getting attacked, it took forever for that to sink in,” Sijaric said. “It just wasn’t something that could happen to you, period. You don’t think about it.”

Soon after the war started, she began keeping a diary to reflect on what was happening in Bosnia, as well as her own coming of age, which ended up inspiring her memoir, The Far Away People. Sijaric thought: “Maybe I can get a little sense of justice. I’ll write everything that happened so nobody can come back and tell me this didn’t happen.”

After her family’s new home was destroyed in a bombing, Amela and her mother and sisters relocated to a Toplik—an atomic bomb shelter in Sarajevo that housed more than 300 people. Most slept on the cold concrete floor, and hundreds of people were forced to share one toilet. Any water for drinking or washing had to be collected from a nearby river.

“As cold, dirty, and uncomfortable as it may have been at Toplik, it was the only place where we felt like we could relax enough to fall asleep.”

Her father, who was absent during the bombing, had not returned, and the children sensed that their mother had changed. “As a kid, you always expect your parents to know what to do when new situations arise,” Sijaric said. “It’s a strange feeling when you know that even your parent doesn’t know what to do.”

Their father arrived at Toplik nine days later—after being in the hospital for the injuries he had sustained in the bombing—and was almost unrecognizable to Sijaric. The family was reunited, but the violence raged on. “Normally, it’s always dark here—day or night, except for one or two candles,” Sijaric wrote in a diary entry from June of 1992. “We live like moles or mice in a sewer. When I can’t take this dark any longer, I get out into the hallway. But you can’t stay there for long either because those animals start bombing from up above.”

As time went on, the family tried to get on lists to leave the country, but of course, those lists were extensive, and their attempts proved unsuccessful. It was not until after the war that Sijaric made her first trip to the United States.

After years of ceasefires without any real backing that only led to further violence, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) finally gave the aggressors an ultimatum: withdraw their weapons from Sarajevo or have their positions bombed. Soon, the NATO airstrikes began.

“Everything was shaking but for the first time, we were happy about the bombings,” Sijaric said. “Destroy it all if you need to. Destroy our homes. Do what you have to do. Just please make the war stop!”

The Dayton Peace Accord was signed in Ohio in December of 1995.

Shortly after the war ended, Sijaric’s first job as a journalist allowed her to attend an American workshop, and she took full advantage of the experience. She visited Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City. While she immediately fell in love with the U.S., the sheer difference in lifestyles between the U.S. and her home felt “unfair” and “depressing.”

It was this experience that made her determined to leave Bosnia and go to college in the United States.

Frowick’s wife knew that Sijaric had dreams of getting an education in the U.S., so she began sending Sijaric books about colleges. Sijaric spent many late nights researching colleges, staying at work after hours because she did not have internet at home. After nearly two years of searching, studying and applying, she discovered a small Indiana college that already had one Bosnian student in attendance, and soon she was admitted there too.

Life in the U.S. was simpler for Sijaric in many ways. Even with the cultural differences in studying, working and using money, “from then on, everything was easy.” Still, there were struggles day to day. Speaking about her experience living through war remained difficult and emotional, and the trauma conditioned her to be cautious at all times.

Because the war had stolen nearly all her teenage years, she took every opportunity she could during college. She studied political science, worked multiple jobs, took extra classes, made time for partying with friends, and still managed to graduate in just three years.

From there, she earned her Juris Doctor degree from the Indiana University Indianapolis School of Law. She now lives in Indianapolis and works for Marion County Public Defender’s Agency. Her memoir, The Far Away People, was published in 2022.

Amela also spoke at this year’s Virtual Showcase Series, and her presentation can be found here.