A Survival Q & A: Living Through SHTF In the Middle of A War Zone
Chris Kitze
SHTFPlan.com
October 25th, 2011
Several readers alerted us to a forum thread at Survivalist Boards that centered around an individual named Selco who spent several years in a city setting during the complete collapse of Bosnia circa 1992. Selco describes the experiences and the survival strategies that he, his family and his community used to stay alive. Many forum members chimed in on the conversation and asked questions of Selco, who took the time to provide vivid details to an interested survival community.
The following compendium of the most popular questions and answers from the forum thread has been provided by Chris Kitze of well known alternative media web site Before It’s News. It’s a long read, but well worth your time.
SHTFplan editor’s note: When it hit the fan in Bosnia in the 1990′s the electrical grid and water utilities went down, thus there was no heat in the winter and no potable water available for drinking. The currency and banking system were non-existent and commerce in its traditional form came to a standstill – leaving only barter as a way to acquire goods. The food supply and transportation systems fell apart. Police, fire, and medical services disappeared. Violence, disease and death spread throughout the region. Few were prepared for what would follow. This is Selco’s story. Pay attention, it may save you life one day.
“Nobody wins, we just survived, with a lot of bad dreams.”
From Selco:
OK, i wanna share with you my own experience. (be patient with my English, i am from far away )
I am from Bosnia, and as some of you may know it was hell here from 92-95, anyway, for 1 whole year i lived and survived in a city of 50 000- 60 000 residents WITHOUT: electricity, fuel,running water,real food distribution, or distribution of any goods, or any kind of organized law or government.The city was surrounded for 1 year and in that city actually it was SHTF situation.
We did not have organized army or police force, there was groups of defenders, actually anybody who had a gun, fight for his own house and his own family.
Some of us was better prepared, but most of families had food for couple of days, some of us had pistol, few owned AK-47 when all started.
Anyway, after one month or two, gangs started with their nasty job,hospital looked like butchery, police force vanished, 80 percent of hospital staff gone home.
I was lucky, my family was big in that time (15 members in one big house, 5-6 pistols, 3 Kalashnikov s) so we lived and survived, most of us.
I remember US Air force dropped MRE every 10 days (god bless USA for that) as help for surrounded city, it just was not enough.Some of houses had little gardens with some vegetables, most did not.
After three months rumors started abouth first deaths from starvation,deaths from low temperatures, we stripped every door , window frame from abandoned houses for heating, i burned all my own furniture for heating, lot of people died from diseases, mostly from bad water (two of my family members), we used rain water for drink, several times i ate pigeons, once i ate rat.
The Rest…HERE
– Selco
