S. O. S. for children in VUKOVAR!
Cedo....@ijs.ac.mail.yu
VMSmail CC information: CEDOMIR
Sender's personal name: Cedomir Igaly, +38-41-420-639
PEACE FOR ALL CHILDREN OF CROATIA - NOW
YU - 41000 ZAGREB; Phones 3841/465-418, 465-389, 465-379;
Fax 3841/465-455
UK - LONDON c/o Vesna PUSIC, Phone 071/585-3194; Fax 071/384-1051
S. O. S.
for children in VUKOVAR!
Zagreb, November, 17th 1991
We are writing from CROATIA, until recently a beautiful country in the
south of Europe and a part of Yugoslavia. Since we were the most
liberal country of the former Eastern Block, we expect our transition
into a new democracy to be peaceful. Instead, our whole country
disintegrated into a dreadful war. It is a war of an Army fighting
against the people, a war of hardware against the people. People want
and can win the peace. But CROATIA is no more the country it was for
those born and bred in it or those who visited it, or perhaps just
heard of it. This is now an enormous battlefield in which many towns
and villages have been razed to the very ground.
We appeal to you in the name of two thousand children in the town of
Vukovar which is now a heap of ruins, pounded by bombs and grenades
where the people can only survive underground. These children - some
of them babies, have now spent more than eighty days in their
underground shelters, without electricity and running water, without
winter clothing, with no right to play and laugh, in constant mortal
danger. Their eardrums bleed from detonations. They have boils from
poisonous chemicals and scabs for lack of even the most elementary
hygiene. These children cannot stay there much longer!
The entire world sent up an outcry when the aggressors began shelling
our beautiful historical city DUBROVNIK, the jewel which we inherited
from our ancestors and must keep whole for our children and grand
children. However, the outcry did not last long and now DUBROVNIK IS
SYSTEMATICALLY DESTROYED FROM LAND AND SEA.
We also wish to raise our cry for VUKOVAR, another city in agony.
Although 80% of all its buildings have been destroyed, the media have
no pictures of the ruins because it is impossible to take pictures
there and impossible to take them out. VUKOVAR is today similar to
Dante's Inferno. Its inhabitants live in conditions unfit for a human
being.
If you had to remind someone of the horrors of HIROSHIMA you could
show him VUKOVAR. Here there has been no atom bomb - but between 1500-
2200 grenades and bombs have been falling on this city daily for
almost three months. The children of VUKOVAR will not get cancer, but
they are losing their hair, some of them have turned grey overnight
and most of them are nervous wrecks.
Perhaps you cannot stop this tragic war with your protest, but we beg
you to raise your voice for the children of VUKOVAR whose only lullaby
are the sound of weapons. Raise your voice in support of their right
to live.
Even the most primitive people have spared mothers and children in
warfare. Now thousands of children are blocked in cold and dark
underground shelters in VUKOVAR which is surrounded by the enemy from
all sides. WE MUST SAVE THOSE CHILDREN!
We appeal to you for help in our organised effort to evacuate the
children of VUKOVAR. Could you do something for us? May be you could
give us some form of public support, or show your direct involvement
in the effort to save these children from sickness and death? If you
can, please use your influence and persuade your representatives in
government to support our action to save the children of VUKOVAR. If
you intervene in person, if you lift on telephone receiver if you
speak in public, if you appear in a programme you will help us very
much. Please raise your voice for all children of VUKOVAR. This might
turn the eyes, ears and cameras to the world in the direction of the
martyr city of VUKOVAR. Please support our initiative and do
everything that is in your power. OUR CHILDREN NEED YOU!
Organiser of the action
RESCUE THE CHILDREN OF VUKOVAR
Vesna MIHELIC VILLI