Floods devastating for families already living in poverty

For Semsa (26), nights are particularly dreadful: as dark falls, her 5-year old daughter with cerebral palsy starts having fits, body convulsions, seizures and uncontrollable crying. Displaced due to floods, Semsa is now forced to spend those nights far away from the city and health centre.

Together with her husband and three children, 26-year old Semsa Cikaric lives in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s third largest city of population reaching little over 120,000. Majority of those are struggling with decaying economic situation and growing number of youth is leaving the city. Roma population – to which Semsa and her family also belong to – are particularly affected by the poverty.

Alike majority of Roma in Tuzla are (only 2% are employed), Semsa and her husband have no permanent jobs and no secure income other than child allowance. Both parents try to secure daily wages but there are less and less opportunities around. House they live in has no running water or electricity, making care of their children – especially 5-year old Mirela suffering from cerebral palsy – particularly challenging.

Mirela requires around-the-clock care and supervision, as well as regular medical attention and daily routines. Still, slips are frequent and they often occur during the night as Mirela is very much scared of dark. Fear triggers uncontrollable crying and panic attacks followed by body convulsions and seizures.

Lives of all Cikarics have been disrupted in mid-May as floods hit Bosnia and Herzegovina and over 1300 landslides were registered in Tuzla area. One of those came dangerously close – about 1.5 meters – to their already frail house and family was evacuated first in an improvised shelter whose capacities were overloaded.

“We were sitting in the house when a rain started falling and nobody paid attention to it. But the rain had not stopped for days. I went out and saw that one half of our yard broke off. I called for my husband and mother to come out and see what had happened. As hours passed, this part was breaking off more and more and it started to slide. It stopped at about a meter and half from the house wall. Then cracks appeared around the house and water started getting into the house,” recalls Semsa.

After short stay in the temporary shelter, Semsa and her family were relocated to village of Mihatovici, where they were given accommodation in a nice and clean place with warm water in a bathroom. Although the village does not have a medical doctor and the city is far away, the family chose to stay there temporarily, until they are able to go back to their home. Semsa was in Tuzla with Mirela at a medical check. The girl’s health condition is stable and the doctor indicated that there is no need to take the child to the Health facility until she goes back home to Tuzla. Semsa now does the exercises that the doctor has shown them with Mirela, at home. Now they have everything they need, although any support in food is more than welcome.

As soon as they settled down, a social worker from Zemlja djece (Land of Children), Save the Children’s partner organisation, paid them a visit, bringing food, clothes and diapers for Mirela. Cikaric family has been a beneficiary of the Zemlja djece drop-in centre in Tuzla for years. The NGO’s workers provided the family with humanitarian aid and psycho-social assistance to parents. Now, as the family is awaiting to return home, they are regularly visited by the social worker from Zemlja djece.

It has been estimated that 1.3 million people of BiH (whose total population is 3.8 million) has been directly affected and that 500,000 had to leave their homes. 

In the first wave of responding to this emergency that also hit Croatia and Serbia, Save the Children provided boats, generators, pumps, boots, raincoats and sand bags to rescue teams. Save the Children has since also started to distribute essential relief to children and families affected by the floods, and continues to assess and respond to the needs of the most vulnerable, including street children and poorer – mainly Roma – communities in some of the worst-hit areas.