When it rains, Umija Arfadzan has nightmares.
“I dream of floodwaters sweeping away my youngest son,” she said. “I scream, but my husband can’t wake me.”
Fifty-one-year-old Umija spoke in the improvised living room of a container home that the Arfadzans moved into earlier this year, their second temporary shelter since the house they owned was ruined by flooding that struck Bosnia and Herzegovina a year ago, in the middle of the night.
Not more than 16 square metres, the container is one of 20 erected in the town of Jablanica, some five kilometres from the devastated village of Donja Jablanica, where the Arfadzans lived. The family – Umija, her 70-year-old husband Ibro, and their two sons – got two containers, which at first contained only a bathroom, a small cabinet and an air conditioning unit used for cooling and heating. The family installed a cooker and brought in extra furniture.
Nineteen people died in Donja Jablanica, in the northern reaches of the Herzegovina region, when streets and homes were inundated with water in the early hours of October 4, 2024.
A total of 27 lives were lost to the flooding, which devastated the wider region of Fojnica, Konjic, Kiseljak and Kresevo and caused more than 50 million euros in damage.