Sally Becker

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Sally Becker is an author and former leader of Operation Angel, a British convoy in Kosovo [1] (not to be confused with the American charity or any of the other many Operation Angel entities known worldwide). She has spent time volunteering in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina and is credited with at one time saving 170 people there. [2]

[edit] Volunteering in Bosnia

She was 33 years old when she decided to go to Bosnia and try to help. (Further information can be found by searching the internet for 'sally becker angel of mostar') She began by delivering medical aid and food to the small Jewish community in Mostar and through them, she was given permission by Croat commanders to evacuate wounded Bosnian children and their families from the besieged city. Following this evacuation she was dubbed The Angel of Mostar.

She managed to secure permission for the delivery of humanitarian aid to all sides of the conflict and for the evacuation of wounded civilians. She led a convoy of 50 vehicles and two hundred volunteers from Britain carrying many tons of medical aid and food and evacuated 98 wounded. Two months later (mid winter) all aid agencies were grounded due to snow. She borrowed a helicopter and flew into central Bosnia alone to bring out 55 wounded children and their families.

[edit] Struggles in Kosovo

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When the war spread to Kosovo she crossed the mountains on foot carrying paediatric medicines to Junik, a town surrounded by Serb forces. She was asked by the parents of many sick and wounded children to try and evacuate them but as they reached the Albanian border they were ambushed . The rest of the group made it safely across but remaining behind to help a woman and her two young children, Sally was captured, interrogated, abused and imprisoned by Serb paramilitaries. She was sentenced to thirty days imprisonment for crossing the border without a visa . Due to intervention by the British government she was eventually pardoned and released, whereupon she returned to the border of Kosovo. She traced the children (and found almost 100 others also in need of help). The US accepted half of the evacuees, but while she was trying to secure places abroad for the remaining 50 she was shot by masked gunmen. Although the President of Albania sent a helicopter to evacuate her, she refused to abandon the children , remaining there for several weeks, until they had been accepted abroad for medical treatment