We're moving on from the stage of intensive care by an orthopaedic surgeon - now it's time for the physiotherapist

Jacques Klein UN mission in Bosnia

"Going for a coffee" is a favoured Bosnian pastime, and there are cafes on every other corner.

Even in mid-morning, they're busy - most of the people there have no regular job to go to.

Bosnia's post-war economy is a precarious balancing act with no safety net. The war is over; peace has held for six years.

But just as the refugees are returning in large numbers, the young people of Bosnia are seeking to leave.

Waning interest

The cathedral stands on Sarajevo's main pedestrianised street.

On a wall, 100 metres away, a plaque commemorates the shelling of a bread queue in 1993 - one of the early atrocities of the war.

A bunch of fading flowers lies beneath the plaque, but passers-by take little notice - most of them lived through the siege of Sarajevo and need no reminders.

Less than a decade ago, Sarajevo residents were killed as they waited for bread

In the immediate post-war period, most of the money came from the international community: around 5bn dollars since 1995.

A large proportion went to cover the costs of the international organisations, but even money paid in salaries fed back into the local economy.

However, over the past couple of years that aid has been cut back as donors turn their attention elsewhere.

Deceptive appearances

Unemployment is high - around 40%, more in the rural areas, less in relatively prosperous Sarajevo.

After the deprivations of war, putting on a show of finery is more important than ever

That excludes the grey economy, of course, and remittances from abroad - often from people who fled during the war and have now found a new life elsewhere.

Salaries in the public sector and state-owned industries are sometimes not paid for months at a time.

Appearances can be deceptive.

In the evenings, people get dressed up to the nines and walk up and down Ferhadija.

After the deprivations of war, putting on a show of finery is more important than ever - except, of course, for the beggar woman in headscarf and baggy skirt, bent nearly double, muttering and holding a child like a rag doll.

But a colleague of mine, visiting Sarajevo last summer for the first time since before the war, noticed there were more people doing the evening stroll than before.

Ten years ago, they would have decamped to the Croatian coast for at least part of the summer; now, it's simply more than most people can afford.

Bosnian business

The fast-food chain McDonald's wanted to buy the caf� by the cathedral steps, but it was defeated by the maze of bureaucracy.

Whatever one's opinion of McDonald's, it's an ominous sign for anyone who wants to do business in Bosnia.

It's almost impossible to comply with all the laws, often contradictory, providing a rich seam of corruption for officials.

Outside the German and Austrian embassies, the visa queues stretch away down the hill.

A study by the United Nations Development Programme in 2000 found 62% of young Bosnians would like to emigrate.

No going back

But what of the more spectacular ravages of war, the suffering which Bosnia endured for nearly four years under the eyes of the world?

It's a mixed picture.

Some peoples' hometowns are now synonymous with murder

Refugees are going home: 100,000 last year, twice as many as the year before, which in turn was twice as many as the year before that.

Reconstruction takes time - rebuilding confidence even more so.

But even these numbers represent only a tiny proportion of the two million people - half the population - displaced during the war.

More than half a million are still living as displaced persons within Bosnia.

Some of them are going back to the most difficult, hardline parts of the country: Foca, Zvornik, Srebrenica, names which became synonymous with ethnic cleansing, mass murder and rape.

But many refugees will never go home - their lives have changed for good.

Eyes of a child

Last spring, a group of around 150 Bosnian Muslim refugees from the rural area around Srebrenica took the first step in the return process.

Most of them had been living in the northern city of Tuzla.

They were going back to see what remained of their houses, in an area where more than 7,000 Muslim men were executed in 1995.

The adults wore the typical clothes of rural eastern Bosnia: berets and woollen jackets for the men, headscarves and full skirts for the women.

More than 500,000 people are still displaced within Bosnia

As they toiled up the muddy hillside track, their children, in trainers and high heels, followed behind, staring around them in disbelief.

War is a great urbaniser: it was hard to believe that these children would choose to go back to a life they left under terrible circumstances, in some cases more than eight years ago.

For all that the international community has committed itself to rolling back ethnic cleansing, much of the damage will never be undone.

In the Bosnian Serb administrative capital, Banja Luka, 16 mosques were blown up: one is now being rebuilt, symbolically and in the teeth of resistance from the local authorities.

The others will probably never be replaced.

Mixed marriages - once a commonplace, especially in Sarajevo - are almost unheard of now.

Freedom of movement has increased dramatically, but many people organise their lives so that they don't have to cross into areas where they're in a minority.

No miracle cure

Change is happening, but slowly.

And perhaps it's too easy to be pessimistic.

For nearly four years, Bosnia-Herzegovina endured a terrible war, plunging further and faster into the abyss than almost anyone would have predicted 10 years ago.

Damage on that scale can't be repaired overnight, or even in six years.

The head of the UN mission in Bosnia, Jacques Klein, uses another metaphor.

"We're moving from the stage of intensive care by an orthopaedic surgeon," he said recently.

"The bones are set; now it's time for the physiotherapist to restore normalcy."