Bosnian family home flooded 25 times since 2000

Almir Secerbegovic, an unemployed construction worker, clears floodwaters from his home in the Sarajevo suburb of Osijek, Bosnia, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015. Heavy overnight rainfall caused rivers to rise in the Sarajevo area on Monday and flood homes in the suburbs for the fifth time in the past 20 months. Residents said that over the past few years their homes have been flooded two or three times annually. (AP Photo/Amel Emric) Almir Secerbegovic, an unemployed construction worker, clears floodwaters from his home in the Sarajevo suburb of Osijek, Bosnia, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015. Heavy overnight rainfall caused rivers to rise in the Sarajevo area on Monday and flood homes in the suburbs for the fifth time in the past 20 months. Residents said that over the past few years their homes have been flooded two or three times annually. (AP Photo/Amel Emric)

By Associated Press January 20, 2015 2 min read

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) – They survived the Balkan war and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and started a new life in a house in a calm Sarajevo neighborhood. Then another disaster struck.

Since 2000, the Bosnian family’s home in the suburb of Ilidza has been flooded 25 times.

“Every year since 2000, my house is flooded once or twice,” unemployed construction worker Almir Secerbegovic said Tuesday as he and his mother were walking around the flooded yard and house trying to decide what to do next.

Bosnians have still not recovered from the devastating floods in May, the worst in 120 years. Those floods hit 40 percent of Bosnia, displaced 90,000 people from their homes and left 43,000 homes in need of repair.

Heavy rain that has descended on the Bosnian capital in the last couple of days has again flooded about 140 houses in Ilidza, where many refugees built new homes after the 1992-95 war. The Bosna river, which runs through the suburb, is prone to bursting its banks once or twice a year.