Caught in the Middle : Bosnians Airlifted to U.S. for Medical Care Are Stranded by War

Mustafa Pajevic, a Bosnian soldier who was brought to the United States in an emergency humanitarian airlift in July to save his grenade-shattered left leg, is stranded in Orange County.

Pajevic is one of 19 disabled Bosnians who were flown from Bosnia to the United States in the first medical rescue mission out of the war-torn country.

Now this group, including 10 people who were hospitalized in Southern California, recently learned that their expected repatriation will be indefinitely delayed.

Unable to speak English and holding tourist visas that make it impossible for them to work or receive public assistance, they are dependent on the charity of volunteers, who are seeing their own finances stretched to the limit.

Since Pajevic was released from Irvine Medical Center four months ago, he has lived with three families, moving whenever he felt the cost of his upkeep had become a burden on their generosity.

“All the time I am on the move,” Pajevic said through an interpreter. He now lives with two Bosnian American brothers in Laguna Niguel. “I don’t know where I am going to end (up). . . . I may wind up on the street,” he said.

The International Organization for Migration, the Swiss-based rescue group that arranged the airlift from Sarajevo, had intended that the Bosnian patients would return to their homeland shortly after they were released from the hospitals where they were treated. But that plan was scuttled after the conflict in Bosnia intensified.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees informed the rescue group in December that international law forbids men of fighting age from being returned to a war zone such as Bosnia. So unless they can change their tourist status, the Bosnians will remain charity cases.

So far, the responsibility for supporting the Bosnians treated in Southern California has fallen primarily on the local Muslim community, including a handful of Bosnian American families, many of whom say they are already hard-pressed trying to assist relatives displaced by the war--both those in Bosnia and others who have immigrated here.

The volunteers buy groceries, pay other living expenses and drive the Bosnian visitors to doctors’ appointments. These benefactors say that representatives of the Swiss rescue agency assured them their services would be required for no more than three months.

“But now we are in the sixth month and there is no end in sight,” said Ramza Saliefendic, a Los Angeles resident who is one of the volunteers.

Each month, six families in Los Angeles and Orange counties contribute money to a pool to support six Bosnians--including a baby who came for heart surgery, and a double amputee--who are living temporarily in a donated two-bedroom apartment in Van Nuys.

Suad Krso, who lost both legs in a grenade blast in Bosnia and came to the United States for surgery to prepare him for artificial legs, had lived as a house guest in Torrance and Garden Grove before moving into the Van Nuys apartment with other disabled Bosnians. Krso, who is being treated at the Los Alamitos Medical Center, says they live together so they can help each other with daily tasks.

“We have our self-respect,” Krso said through an interpreter. “We were always self-supporting people, and we don’t like to be a burden.”

Although Krso and his roommates are grateful for the refuge from the fighting, most say they are eager to return to their homeland when the war subsides.

Mufid Sokolovich, president of the American Bosnia-Herzegovina Assn., a nonprofit organization in Santa Ana that raises funds for the international Bosnian relief effort, said his group is renting a four-bedroom house in Cerritos where about 10 Bosnians, including Pajevic and those in the Van Nuys apartment, will move this month.

Since the July airlift, the number of Bosnians entering the United States for medical help has grown. The Swiss rescue agency said its medical mission has evacuated 362 people from Bosnia, 57 of whom have been brought to the United States, with the remainder going to other Western countries.

“We are getting very good response from hospitals and doctors, and we are bringing in people practically every week,” said Hans-Petter Boe, chief of mission at the agency’s office in Washington.

But because of the plight of the evacuees from Bosnia, the State Department is considering halting future medical airlifts of Bosnians to this country or changing the immigration status of future medical evacuees to make them eligible for welfare and other public assistance.

In the meantime, Immigration and Naturalization Service officials say Bosnians will have no trouble remaining legally in the United States when their tourist visas expire in August. They will qualify under “temporary protective status,” which would allow them to seek employment but does not give them the kind of federal financial assistance that people with refugee status receive.

Mujo Bjelonja, 41, is an electronic engineer who is making rapid progress learning English, according to officials at Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park. Bjelonja came to the hospital severely undernourished and unable to walk, but now can walk with a cane, thanks to extensive medical care.

Jane McDermed, a hospital social worker, said the hospital feels a responsibility to Bjelonja.

“Our plan for him is to get him vocational rehabilitation and maybe some occupation,” she said. “We brought him over here. Because other people dropped the ball, we aren’t going to.”