The young Croatian woman fought back tears as she saw the Serb man's face on the monitor. Before war divided them six years ago, he had been the love of her life.
He, too, was stunned. "I missed you so much," he finally blurted, his voice trembling.Croatia's war ended with a 1992 cease-fire, but the separations it caused endure. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs and Croats remain refugees, no longer welcome in areas now dominated by one or the other ethnic group.
Now, video link-ups - sponsored by the United Nations, United States and the European Union - are reuniting friends and lovers such as Tanja Greganovic and Igor Bodicka, if only briefly, and helping to blunt hostilities between the people of Serbia and Croatia.
Private television stations in Serbia and Croatia have broadcast tapes of their link-up, drawing a huge audience. Thousands of callers - some crying - ask for re-runs.
"The effect has been amazing. It worked brilliantly," said Serge Gordey, a producer the U.S.-based Internews media company that arranged the video links. "It's been like a group therapy for entire audiences,"
Tanja and Igor are typical of the electronic reunions. They were 17 when Croatia's Serbs rebelled in 1991; he fled to safety in Serbia, leaving her in the eastern Croatian town of Osijek.
Igor is still afraid to return to Osijek. For their recent conversation, he came to Serb-dominated Vukovar, while she remained in Croat-populated Osijek, only 20 miles to the northwest.
Tanja, a radio journalist, still lives in Osijek. Igor says he rebuilt his life after years of depression and now studies history in Serbia.
"I often wish it was only a nightmare what the war did to us. . . . Were you angry when I left?" he asks his old love.
She looks down and sighs. "It felt like the end of the world."