'The sun will return to Vukovar': Tony Barber in Zagreb finds a family of Croatian refugees trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and hoping one day that they will be able to return to their shattered homeland

'MY FATHER-in-law's eyes fill with tears when people tell him he can't go back,' said Ivka Graf, a 37-year-old refugee from the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar. Since last October she has lived with her husband, Vladimir, their two sons, Zelimir and Goran, and four other relatives in a cramped basement flat high in the hills of northern Zagreb.

In a sense, they are the lucky ones. At least they have food, clothes and shelter. Mrs Graf even has a job, with a sportswear company. Hundreds of thousands of other refugees from the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have nothing.

But in reality life has turned upside down for the Graf family. The father, a 42-year-old civil engineer, has been unable to find work since he left Vukovar last autumn. He is contemplating going to Germany, but he knows nobody there. His home town, once a quiet leafy settlement on the Danube where Serbs and Croats lived amicably together, was obliterated by Serbian forces; not a single building was undamaged.

A shell fell through the roof of the Grafs' apartment block. The 150-year- old house where Mr Graf was born was blasted to pieces. His sister's home was destroyed. The grandfather, aged 98, stayed until the bitter end; when the Croatian defenders of Vukovar surrendered in November, he was hurriedly evacuated and died from exhaustion in Bjelovar on the road to Zagreb.

'We lost everything we had in Vukovar,' Mrs Graf said yesterday. 'The worst thing was not the material possessions like the television or furniture, but the photographs of our children. To lose those was like being cut off from our roots.'

The Grafs have three cousins. One was sentenced to eight years in prison by a Belgrade court for taking part in an 'armed uprising against the Yugoslav federation'. Another is also in a Serbian jail. The third is missing, perhaps dead. 'Every time there is a release of prisoners, we go to see if he is there. He was taken from a hospital by the Serbs. We don't know what has happened to him,' said Mr Graf.

Every month the Grafs collect 12,000 dinars (about pounds 30) in aid from the Croatian government. Even with Mrs Graf's job, there is not enough money to go around. They depend on charity from the Red Cross and the Catholic group Caritas, which supply them with flour, sugar, rice and other staples. 'Today, for the first time, we got a chicken from Caritas,' said Mrs Graf.

They have also received help from Croatian neighbours and friends who gave them beds, chairs, crockery and a television. Their elder son, Zelimir, who is nine years old, was able to enrol in a Zagreb school; there are three other refugees in his class. Goran, who is six, stays at home.

'It is difficult sometimes, because Goran remembers the toys that he had in Vukovar. He can't understand why he can't play with them any more,' said Mrs Graf.

The Grafs say they do not encounter resentment from natives of Zagreb, even though the Croatian capital is teeming with 150,000 refugees from other parts of the republic. Still, they tend to mix more with fellow refugees from Vukovar. 'Some refugees take an extreme view and say either we, the Croats, will live in Vukovar, or they, the Serbs, will live there. But we had Serbian neighbours and we got on very well with them. There was no sense of hostility,' said Mrs Graf.

She looked up at a colourful poster on the wall that proclaimed: 'The sun will return to Vukovar.'

'I am completely convinced that we will go back one day,' she said.

Confusion over refugees, page 10