“I ask my husband often, ‘How old would they be if they were alive?’” says Zineta Ibisevic, fingering two small, well-worn identity booklets. “I was watching as the Serbians arrested the older one, Salko. I was in a truck with other women. He had his hands behind his head. There were a lot of paramilitary forces around them. They had him at gunpoint, and the men were walking in lines two by two. I wanted to jump out of the truck, but some old women held me back. They said the soldiers could kill me or even rape me in front of my own son. Salko turned his head. He could see there was a truck full of women, but he didn’t see me.”
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Zineta and her husband, Ahmo, arrived in Chicago this past January as part of a refugee resettlement program. Zineta has suffered from depression and nightmares for years now. In February she went for the first time to the Horizons Clinic in Albany Park, a mental health agency for refugees run by World Relief. She’s now a regular, going there at least twice a month for counseling and psychotherapy and for medication to help her sleep.
Since 1996 Horizons has provided mental health services to victims of war, torture, and other forms of persecution, one of three clinics in Chicago set up specifically to treat the mental health needs of refugees. Its 380 clients all left troubled homelands in an attempt to start over in America, but their pasts often make adjustment to life here difficult. They suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and other traumas, and their emotional pain is often accompanied by physical problems.
World Relief has seen its state grants cut by 20 percent, according to Dori Dinsmore, who heads the Chicago office. Several of the agency’s programs have been eliminated. With nine staff members and four graduate students helping clients, Horizons is World Relief’s largest program in Chicago, accounting for about a fifth of its staff and a quarter of its budget. Employee hours have been reduced, and further cuts are now likely.
The couple first wanted to go to Canada to join a relative, but Canada turned them down. They were then approved for resettlement in Chicago, not far from Zineta’s sister-in-law, who lives in the suburbs. They were sponsored by Catholic Charities, which found them a small apartment on the northwest side.
Yet Zineta is determined to go back home. The State Department has deemed Bosnia safe again, and she sees shows on Bosnian television featuring people who’ve returned. “I’m saving money,” she says. “I hope someday to buy an apartment in Bosnia. My husband wants to work here, to earn his pension, so we can go home someday.” She says she has to know what happened to her sons. “I would give my own life if I could have just one of my children back. That would be such a precious thing.”
