Jobless Protesters Trudge to Sarajevo, Threatening Suicide

Unemployed veterans Sefik Muminovic, 55, and Dzemal Zahirovic, 59, arrived in the Sarajevo suburbs early on Tuesday morning after walking 108 kilometres along winding mountain roads from the northern industrial town of Zivinice.  

The two men had set out on foot on Monday morning cloaked in Bosnian national flags and carrying a handwritten poster with the slogan "Veterans condemned to death because of criminals and hunger".

Muminovic and Zahirovic said they planned to seek help from government officials or burn themselves in despair if no assistance was given, and carried two bottles of petrol with them in order to carry out their suicide threat.

They said they have nothing to lose and no other options because they and all their relatives have been unemployed for years.  

"I cannot stand this life any more. I have been burning in poverty for 20 years," Zahirovic told local media.  

"This is unbearable. I have no bread. The other day I was returning home and my granddaughter ran towards me and asked for one Convertible Mark [about 50 euro cents]. And I did not have even that to give," said Muminovic.

People along the road offered them food, drinks and even places to stay, but the two men pressed on, followed by police, journalists and few curious onlookers, as local media and social networks followed their progress towards Sarajevo.

Zahirovic and Muminovic told media that they would try to meet Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosniak member of Bosnia's presidency and the leader of the main Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, and Zeljko Komsic, the head of the Democratic Front party and its MP in the state House of Representatives, and seek their assistance. 

They said that if they didn't get any help, they would set themselves...