Innocent victims of the war in the former Yugoslavia in 1993
A young girl looks up to the building she once called home. Now all she sees is rubble and destruction.The scene of devastation is now all too common across Croatia. Hundreds of once content, proud families finding their villages and livelihoods destroyed.
Her remaining family have lost their possessions.
All they can call their own are the clothes they wore when they fled in terror one night, as the sound of mortar bombs and gunfire echoed through the valleys.
Aid convoys are being turned away by Serb leaders and the refugee camps are crying out for help.
On February 13, 1993, I joined a small convoy under the banner Humanitarian Aid For Croatia, heading for the coastal town of Dubrovnik, with no security from the United Nations.
Along the way, we stopped at a children's home at Crikvenica on the island of Pag, near the major city of Rijeka. The children there were lucky with enough aid being donated by foreign groups.
But travelling along the coastal road between Zadar and Dubrovnik, it was a different experience,. It seemed much colder and silent.
In the village of Cilipi, there was one church standing among the ruins caused by fighting in the region. There we met a Cathoic sister who beckoned us nervously into the church.
Leading us to a statue inside the chapel, she broke down crying, pointing to the Virgin Mary whose eyes had been torn out. The effigy of Christ had been decapitated.
A nearby village of Dola was to show us the real victims of war. A roofless house drew us to a small community, bound together following the recent shelling of their homes.
The only room standing in one house was home to a family who had lost several grandchildren while they had been sleeping.
They began crying when we offered them warm clothing and food. They were sad because they knew they had to accept it, they had nothing else.
At one small village, we found a small girl wandering about among the rubble of her home. With the help of an interpreter, we learned that she was with her uncle, trying to look for her favourite doll that was lost during the bombing of her home two days ago.
Her parents and sisters have not been found.
The journey deeper into Croatia, towards the Bosnian border, became ever more dangerous. After stoppping at a building to hand out aid to villagers in Gruda, we heard explosions drawing near.
One woman ushered us into her home. She had been scared because she believed we were Serbian soldiers, returning to finish the job they had started many weeks beforehand.
We were offered a Croatian spirit drink and wished good luck on our journey. We left swiftly as we witnessed a neigbouring village in the valley bearing the brunt of mortar shelling.
At a refugee camp close to Dubrovnik, we came across a festival involving the children who had lost their homes, and some their parents, in the war.
They were singing songs of peace, interrupted only by the muffled sounds of explosions some kilometres away.
Among the faces we saw was the small girl in the red top - and she was clutching her favourite doll, it was the only thing she had left.
The television screens are still full of the peace talks being held far away from the fighting, while the real victims face yet another night of uncertainty.
