The Bridge of Brave Women
Meet Maida Bilal, a 40 year old single mother in Bosnia who led a group of women from her village in a 503-day blockade to save her local river.
Maida grew up in Kruščica, a village in the mountains west of Sarajevo, and her childhood was shaped by the civil war which claimed the life of her brother. She was drawn to activism from a young age as a way to channel her grief into positive action.
In July 2017 Maida was working part-time in financial administration, when she learned that heavy machinery was en route to her village to construct two dams and a hydropower-plant along the Kruščica River. Without any local consultation, Maida felt blindsided. The free-flowing river provided fresh drinking water for her village, critical habitat to wildlife and was an integral part of community life. She felt that "as a human being that I had to go out and fight for the river and for life in general.”
To access the site, construction workers needed to cross a small wooden bridge, so Maida organised 300 villagers, most of them women, to form a human blockade. The symbolic protest expanded into a much larger mission when the contractors refused to budge, and the woman were forced to guard the bridge 24 hours a day, in 8-hour shifts.
At dawn on August 24, 2017, a special police unit in full riot gear used brute force to clear the women from the bridge. Most of the women were harmed, and Maida was struck on the head, nearly knocked unconscious. Despite the trauma, Maida and her women remained on the bridge for a total of 503 days, through heat, rain, and the bitter Bosnian winters.
In between shifts, Maida founded Eko Bistro, a community group who engaged a layer to take on the local politicians and have the construction permits revoked. After a year of legal battles, Maida won her case and the permits for the dams were cancelled. The decision marked the first legal victory of its kind in Bosnia and on December 19, 2018, the women finally left the bridge.
Today the bridge is named “Bridge of the Brave Women of Kruščica” and Maida has expanded her fight to save the pristine waterways around her country.“The issue is not only that the river in my village was under attack, but that all wild rivers in this region are at risk. It’s very sad for me to see that rivers aren’t protected by constitutions, as they should be.”
