The Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995 divided a Serb family three way in a single city, leaving two brothers and their father fighting on opposite sides.
Zoran Laketa from southern city of Mostar recalls the story of two brothers and their father fighting in three different military groups the bitter effects of the disintegration of Yugoslavia affected thousands of families.
He was only 25 when the war knocked on his door. Until then his only dream was to become an aircraft technician and to work in a plane factory in his relatively small city.
However, the day war spread to Mostar on May 9, 1993, Zoran found himself on the battlefield overnight.
Zoran was on the west bank of the city, spending time with his then-girlfriend, now wife, when the war began in Mostar.
Just because he was on the west bank, he was taken into the Croatian Defense Council (HVO), while his brother Goran together with his Bosniak friend on the east side of the city were taken to the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH).
Their father Ratko had already been taken into the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) before the war spread to Mostar.
It is impossible to listen to Zoran's story, and not wonder if it was possible that the father and two sons fought each other in the relatively small city.
This story, apart from being a family tragedy itself, is also the most potent example of how war, and all that it carries with it, is nothing but evil and a great absurdity.
Zoran pointed out that he did not even know that he was Orthodox until the beginning of the war.
"We must fight on the side of the Serbs because we are Orthodox. How could we fight on the Serb front wearing Chetnik hat? My symbol was a pentagonal star [communism]. I believed in brotherhood and equality. I believed that all people were the same, that we could work together and have something together. Unfortunately the exact opposite of that happened," Zoran said.
Zoran explained that before the war, Muslims, Orthodox and Catholics respected each other's beliefs and visit each other on religious festivals.
"I turned into a soldier in the spring of my youth who hated others. It was a war where brothers killed each other, and I fought in different armies with my father and brother," Zoran said.
Zoran describes May 9, 1993 as a historic day in his life, as he was no longer able to cross the street he had lived in his entire life and left his brother and mother behind.
His mother and brother were just a street away, but he could not meet them.
Meanwhile, Zoran says "it was a great trauma" to think about coming into direct contact with his own brother fighting on the opposite side in the same city.
Goran was 24 years old when he was killed by a mortal shell fired by Croat forces.
Zoran heard about his brother's death after seven days, via Radio Mostar.
"I could not believe what I heard. You cannot go to your brother's funeral, you cannot see a mother who lost her son, but you have to carry it in your own, in a small human being.
"You do not know how your mother is, it's a trauma. I cried, these were some unarticulated screams for up to four or five o'clock in the morning. It was very difficult for me to fall asleep because I could not go to my brother's funeral," Zoran said.
Ratko, the father, died after the war.
Zoran said he still cannot understand how a simple family that lived with a worker's salary fell into such a complex situation. Today he is married and has two daughters.
At the end of his story, Zoran Laketa sends a short and clear message "God let such things never be repeated."
